Would you pay to get your news off the web?

Mattie500

Clickbait is the problem I have with internet news sites. The quality of the journalism on the Internet is pretty poor and it is frustrating to wade through the vast quantity of dross to get to something that is newsworthy and which isn't written in a way that encourages the permanently outraged to post their important opinion at the bottom. The Irish Times will have to go back to journalism basics for this to work. I am willing to pay for the content if it means not having random comments attached to each story.

C.K Dexter Haven

shruikan2553 wrote: »

The same things as now.

rubbish ! total and utter nativity for anyone who thinks that.

HamsterFace

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

Will they still have ads? If they charge a sub and still give people ads then they're fuking scumbags

Must be a lot of scumbags out there in your eyes so :-)

truedoom

snollup wrote: »

The Irish Times is going subscription based from next week, will you pay to use the site?

Me, probably will as it's the only half decent Irish news source.

Will you?

i don't buy newspapers, as i get any news i need online for free.

so no.

stoneill

I get my news from my once a week visit to my ma where I can listen to her spout sh1te she has heard on radio over the last week.

Susandublin

No - not because I hate paying for things but it would have a negative impact on the quality of news. Bad news sells which is why our irish papers are so depressing - free news and providers sell advertising - no incentive to be so negative.
Would love to see a news story "everything is great" and list reasons why Ireland is a great place to live and why we are all so lucky. A dose of reality is needed to the moaners - move to Afria and see how soon you'll want to come home!
So to summarise , no.

conorh91

There's no point in my paying for the digital subscription alone, because I buy the paper every morning anyway, which already sets me back about €50 a month.

So if I were to buy the digital subscription on top of that, I'd be paying €62+ a month to read the ramblings of Una Mullally. My arse.

But sure for €50 a month I can get the premium digital subscription AND the hard-copy newspaper delivered to my door every day.

So taking that option, I don't incur a loss… the paper is delivered to my door instead of having to fetch it, and hopefully the quality will improve

Sorry for thinking as I type, but the pricing structure just seems a little odd.

jester77

snollup wrote: »

The Irish Times is going subscription based from next week, will you pay to use the site?

Me, probably will as it's the only half decent Irish news source.

Will you?

eh, <looks at post date>

I thought they were already subscription based? Actually I could swear they were, I used to visit it until they put their articles behind a paywall. That was the last time I visited.

Meathlass

conorh91 wrote: »

There's no point in my paying for the digital subscription alone, because I buy the paper every morning anyway, which already sets me back about €50 a month.

So if I were to buy the digital subscription on top of that, I'd be paying €62+ a month to read the ramblings of Una Mullally. My arse.

But sure for €50 a month I can get the premium digital subscription AND the hard-copy newspaper delivered to my door every day.

So taking that option, I don't incur a loss… the paper is delivered to my door instead of having to fetch it, and hopefully the quality will improve

Sorry for thinking as I type, but the pricing structure just seems a little odd.

They only deliver to certain areas in Greater Dublin though so not really an option for most people. I'm lucky in that my workplace has subsidized newspapers so I can buy the IT for 80c. I don't get a chance to read it all every day so it wouldn't be worth me spending €2 on it each day

Meathlass

jester77 wrote: »

eh, <looks at post date>

I thought they were already subscription based? Actually I could swear they were, I used to visit it until they put their articles behind a paywall. That was the last time I visited.

They came off that model in about 2008 ish and it's been free since then until this week.

The Corinthian

The Irish Times publishes news? TBH, for international news you're better off going to an international site anyway. For Irish news, there are too many free alternitives and the IT doesn't really add anything that they don't already offer.

That leaves the bulk of what the IT and other Irish publications offer - Opinion. Honestly, I've little interest in reading Fintan O'Toole's self-serving polemics as it is, let alone pay for the honour of doing so.

I get the impression that the IT is still living in the past - where their staff had comfortable well-paid jobs with short hours - in a time where that's no longer realistically viable. It's not just them, but the entire industry has largely been unable to adapt to the Internet; not just print, but even TV has seen this happen.

The IT might get some of the expat market, but - speaking as an expat - I wouldn't hold my breath on how much.

Egginacup

Trigger Happy wrote: »

No, me neither. This is their second attempt at moving behind a pay wall. They were paywall on ireland.com up to mid 2008.
Cant see it working this time either.

Ah yes, Ireland.com. I used to read it everyday online back in 1995,96 then they started charging for it. Don't think I've looked at the times since then.

ancapailldorcha

Turtwig wrote: »

Can't think of any Irish newspaper I'd pay subscriptions to. They're utter shyte. If the Irish Times improves its quality I may reconsider. Doubt it though. It's in decline and if it can't improve in quality it should be put out to pasture.

Yeah, I'm the same. The BBC is the best option over here and it's free. It's also the thrall of whoever's running things sadly.

I'd be more than happy to pay for an independent service free of advertising and thus beholden to the consumer. Sadly, none of these exist that I know of.

RomanKnows

I signed up for a package this morning. While it's far from a flawless publication, it still offers a range of features that I think are worth paying for. They pay for opinion polls to be carried out. Miriam Lord's colour pieces from the Dail are excellent. Rugby and GAA analysis are good.
I feel these are some of the things worth paying for.

I'd rather a Miriam Lord piece than the demented opinions of some angry socialist neckbeard looking at Dail TV waiting for something to be outraged about so he can tweet/blog and update his Facebook status in the hope of whipping his 'followers' into a frenzy. Most frenzy and outrage is more advertising revenue. It's a depressing model of news generation. It's utterly vacuous. It rails against depth, longform pieces, investigations and thorough analysis. It promotes pageviews, parasitic churnlism, and mouth breathers offering their incoherent opinions on everything below the 'story'.

Eugh.

Jinonatron

I have to say I will happily pay for quality journalism. The blog and Facebook and joe.ie generation have caused standards of writing to go to ****

RomanKnows

Jinonatron wrote: »

I have to say I will happily pay for quality journalism. The blog and Facebook and joe.ie generation have caused standards of writing to go to ****

Self-facilitating media nodes.

keithclancy

Sure the Newspapers get most of their news off twitter anyway.

They should be paying us for the revenue they receive in ads

V_Moth

RomanKnows wrote: »

Self-facilitating media nodes.

Can't believe that show is 10 years old now.

In the last while, I have found that video sites like Liveleak are far better at covering International news than most news agencies. For example, IS was being regularly mentioned months ahead of any mention in print, while Debaltsevo in the Ukraine came up 2 or 3 days beforehand. You do need a good propaganda filter though.

The_Captain

Jinonatron wrote: »

I have to say I will happily pay for quality journalism. The blog and Facebook and joe.ie generation have caused standards of writing to go to ****

I'm with you on this.

Free news is just reposts of randomers tweets and 'click this link to see how Kim Kardashian lost three stone without dieting or exercising'

If that's the standard of reporting you're happy with, fine, go with it. I want to read articles researched and written by actual journalists, not social media managers and redditors

mikom

RomanKnows wrote: »

I signed up for a package this morning. While it's far from a flawless publication, it still offers a range of features that I think are worth paying for. They pay for opinion polls to be carried out. Miriam Lord's colour pieces from the Dail are excellent. Rugby and GAA analysis are good.
I feel these are some of the things worth paying for.

I'd rather a Miriam Lord piece than the demented opinions of some angry socialist neckbeard looking at Dail TV waiting for something to be outraged about so he can tweet/blog and update his Facebook status in the hope of whipping his 'followers' into a frenzy. Most frenzy and outrage is more advertising revenue. It's a depressing model of news generation. It's utterly vacuous. It rails against depth, longform pieces, investigations and thorough analysis. It promotes pageviews, parasitic churnlism, and mouth breathers offering their incoherent opinions on everything below the 'story'.

Eugh.

Enjoy paying Breda O'Brien's wages........ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breda_O%27Brien