Revolutionary Error

elle oh elle: The state of online media

elle-oh-elle:

There’s such demand for a good, online-only publication that covers global news. I’d gladly pay a monthly subscription for it. It’s 2012, and I’m still waiting. I get most of my daily news from random people on Twitter. There’s something wrong with that.

I’ve had this same thought, but I honestly don’t know how it could work. It seems like news articles need to be shared socially to gain traction and that can’t happen if they’re behind a paywall. It’s frustrating to click on a link from the New York Times and not be able to read the article.

I’m also really not sure if I would have bothered with, say, The Verge if it required a subscription. How does a new site convince people that they’re worth paying for if we can just grab all the articles we want from random sources?

Could a new organization make money if they only delivered content through apps? That might be an interesting route to pursue.