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Ask HN: Why do news websites think this is a good idea?

9 points by anbardoi ↗ HN
So many journalist/news websites require an account/subscription. It didnt used to be that way. With the volume of news sites on the web, do they really expect it to be productive to ask users to make an account? People are actively seeking to reduce the number of accounts they have to create on the web, because they dont want to keep track of them all, or risk their data being leaked. Sure, they will get die-hard readers/fans to make an account or subscribe, but how can they expect to gain new readers or fans if most of them throw up a full-screen "Create an account to continue reading"? Like the user cant even deduce if its a good article, they have no incentive to create an account. Just an incentive to mark your publication in their mind on a mental blacklist because you deny them content. Is this bigger than what I can see? Would love to hear different viewpoints.

12 comments

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cebert
With browsers starting to eliminate 3rd party cookie tracking, publishers need new means of tracking viewers for monetization. The publishers don’t care about you or your experience but rather being profitable.

It’s quite unfortunate that these email captive screens are starting to not allow you to use a private email relay service such as those from Apple or DuckDuckGo.

al_borland
Old media was profitable without a need to track users. Everyone saw the same ads. With a sufficiently large readership, and advertisers with mass market products, I don’t see why targeting is needed.

If I’m Coca-Cola advertising with the New York Times, do demographics really matter? Their target market is everyone, so the only thing that should matter is how many times the ad is seen.

kasey_junk
Tracking makes it easier for advertisers to measure the impact of their ad spend. So they shift budgets to places that are easier to measure.

Facebook, Google et al have dramatic structural advantages in that case compared to news organizations. One of the ways the news organizations are trying to adapt is by having more direct knowledge about their readers.

And fwiw they knew _more_ about their subscribers in the olden days. They had your physical address and frequently either asked for demographic data or had their sales agents collect it.

al_borland
Philosophically, I don’t think a company’s desire to optimize marking should come at the cost of people’s privacy.

I get why they want it, but don’t agree that it’s important enough to give up our privacy.

bell-cot
I'd assume it's mostly because not requiring an account/subscription isn't working particularly well for them. Whether they are in desperate financial straits, or their PHB's need to pretend they're doing something useful, or they've grown resentful of working for crap pay so the world can read their work for free, or "subscriber growth" is the newest fashion in game-able metrics, or ...
uberman
Ad blockers prevent generating revenue from ads and someone needs to pay somehow. Gdpr makes it more difficult to collect and sell information about you. Dame with 3rd party cookies.

I'm not saying that I want ads or to be tracked. I dont.

aristofun
Is it the only piece of evidence that news media went down the hill in past ~10 years?

I think not and I don’t expect any reasonable actions from unreasonable people.

Why do you, i wonder

aristofun
Is it the only piece of evidence that news media went down the hill in past ~10 years?

I think not and I don’t expect any reasonable actions from unreasonable people.

They are not your friends, and they are not friends to truth anymore, they just do whatever they can to suck extra dollar from you and survive.

Why do you expect something from them, i wonder

aristofun
Instead of downvoting - could you point the line where I was mistaken? :)
anbardoi
That line you said has been echoing in my head the past couple days.. "dont't expect reasonable actions from unreasonable people".

It's not even that they're probably inherently unreasonable, it's that they CHOOSE to be unreasonable because they must be to increase revenue. If there's anything in the world that can return man to his primitive roots, it's money.

aristofun
They are still unreasonable in a sense that if you can't figure out other ways of making money and ready to contribute to society degradation for few extra % of profit - you are shooting in your foot (or at least your grandchildrens')
noashavit
With the upcoming death of the 3rd party cookie they have to have a way to continue to target you. They need a new unique identifier for you.

So they will test out requiring signup, and see how that impacts traffic and engagement. I would assume that in the end we'll find a balance between ungated content (from search) and gated (direct, referral).