(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Online News Should Emulate Streaming By Offering Bundles [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-10-27 How can legitimate and semi-legitimate news agencies help themselves and consumers by becoming financially sustainable, allowing them to distance themselves from billionaires with ulterior motives (government contracts)? How can they become financially stable so that they can provide better products to consumers? I propose that one of the larger more responsible papers, The Guardian maybe, should begin to team up with smaller news agencies or other likeminded news providers and offer group subscriptions or “bundles.” I will personally likely never buy an individual subscription to one news website, just as I’m loathe to buy a streaming service that doesn’t come without any other benefits or affiliated streaming. I sort or resent the “one at a time” model on principle, especially when no one streamer offers everything I want anymore. It’s not consumer friendly. In terms of news, I look to a lot of sources. I can’t subscribe to all of them and I’m not keen on being forced to choose to reward only the ones I can. However, I would buy a bundle sufficiently broad enough to give me my own particular “best of” news sources “one ring to rule them all” style source, particularly if one of the websites allowed me to browse all of them from one web-page/app interface, say a link from the main Guardian US website. I’d even accept a few NY Times or WAPO’s thrown in if they want in on the action. There are a lot of articles on the NY Times that I find I’d like to read, but I just refuse to pay for them. I’m thinking something like the Disney, Hulu, HBO Max bundle or the Disney, Hulu, ESPN bundle, but a larger list including local city or regional newspapers as well as key foreign papers. The best scenario would be that one chooses their own bundle from a long list of options and it’s priced accordingly. But we’re talking something quite broad but only on the order of no more than $3/month. A lot of news sites still give it away for free, so I think something could be cobbled together that’s quite interesting. The current system is broken. As is often the case, money is unfortunately a big part of the problem… and therefore unfortunately likely also the answer. But the system isn’t designed to work to provide quality to consumers unless we unionize. What I’m essentially talking about is a unionized bundle of news sources at an affordable price. Anyway, just a recommendation if anyone who works at one of the big news media players (other than Markos of course) is reading this website. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/27/2280128/-Online-News-Should-Emulate-Streaming-By-Offering-Bundles?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/