Regarding The Verge, I wish something like Apple News existed in this space. I'd happily throw in $10/mo into a pool that distributed money towards a bunch of different smaller tech reporting/blogs/YouTube channels. I just can't justify paying $X/mo individually to 20 different sources.
Though, I dislike that Apple News now runs ads in it's offering and would happily pay a little more to completely get rid of them, but I like the idea that I get access to a number of sources for one payment.
But the curve of how many subscribers need to go premium, how much subscription to charge them and how many/few ads do both sides find acceptable has to be discovered by experimentation (like Netflix's 'Standard with ads' tier).
See also recent articles on "Apple TV+ is a failure despite making great content and $20b investment, Apple is about to make cuts".
(The comparison is not great because premium streaming of original content and long-form text journalism on current affairs are different things with different audiences and pricepoints and viewing patterns.
By the way I only just realized that Netflix releasing Squid Game Season 2 on Dec 26 is probably intentional strategy to reduce January and February cancellations.)
> By the way I only just realized that Netflix releasing Squid Game Season 2 on Dec 26 is probably intentional strategy to reduce January and February cancellations.)
Also why many services release episodes weekly instead of giving them at once.
> See also recent articles on "Apple TV+ is a failure despite making great content and $20b investment, Apple is about to make cuts".
Does it make great content? I've only watched 3 series and then cancelled because it was annoying (but all three were fairly popular), and the more they progressed, the more underwhelming they got. The premise was always good, but scenario was meh and getting meh-er by the episode, everything was kept superficial. Kind of like to tick a box "we talked about X", but without actually exploring the topic. And it was the exact same thing over and over again in 3 separate series - be it the gay footballer in Ted Lasso or the relationship with religion while in climate catastrophe in Extrapolations. No real depth, no real thought provoking discussions, no nothing. Just a quick mention, and jump on to the next topic to gloss over.
It seems to me that they spend a lot on big name actors, had some good initial ideas on what to do, but the actual execution was pretty meh.
Yep, they sit in this very, very weird spot. On one hand they (I suspect) don't want to tarnish Apple's brand, so production quality is very reasonable, which is cost. But they charge below market. Their content is above "play it in the background while scrolling" forgettables like Sex/Life, but below polished pearls like Band of Brothers.
Having watched Presumed Innocent on Apple TV, I have had very similar thoughts. <spoiler> Supposedly it is detective fiction, with some intertwined stories, so called unreliable narrator. But then instead of tying everything together they throw all those parallel stories and draw gotcha card. Cheap novel wrapped in shiny production. </spoler>
> I'd happily throw in $10/mo into a pool that distributed money towards a bunch of different smaller tech reporting/blogs/YouTube channels
I'm almost certain this exact thing used to exist, and The Verge was a part of it, and then it all fell apart. I can't find it now - it's impossible to search for.
The fact that NYTimes never bothered with Apple News says something about this model.
Apple News (or the original Newsstand) might work well for traditional, smaller publishers who are almost struggling in the digital age (most magazines in Apple News would quality), because Apple News brings them traffic and revenue that they may have lost or never get in the first place. Bigger publishers have enough influence to just build their own platform and avoid paying Apple rent. Verge is another such example.
Same reason for Xbox Game Pass, Kindle unlimited, etc. You gets lots of fun games from independent publishers, but never expect something like Hogwarts Legacy to launch on Game Pass on day 1 unless it is a first-party studio (and you have the most expensive version of Game Pass).
If I want to stretch this a bit more, same thing with app stores. Spotify and Netflix are big enough to say "if you want to use our app, go through the pain and pay on the web. We are not offering IAP". Most app developers can't do that. Meanwhile, Epic is big enough that it can pick a fight with Apple.
> but I like the idea that I get access to a number of sources for one payment.
For me it wouldn't even need to be all-I-can-read.
I'd be very happy to pay a reasonable fee pr thing I read, and I'd frankly be excited about it. I was a vocal supporter of the original Blendle for this exact reason.
It either need to be
- (almost) everything at one price like Spotify or Apple Music,
- or it needs to be a reasonable price with reasonable terms, say about the same price, (adjusted for inflation) as what it used to cost back when we bought it on DVDs or CDs.
Though, I dislike that Apple News now runs ads in it's offering and would happily pay a little more to completely get rid of them, but I like the idea that I get access to a number of sources for one payment.