Can Andrew Sullivan Make It Work?: Subscription Online News Services

~ Laura

Matthew Ingram has a good article describing Andrew Sullivan's announcement that he's going to step down from the Daily Beast and begin his own site with a subscription fee. 

Would you pay for Sully? 

Published by Laura

8 thoughts on “Can Andrew Sullivan Make It Work?: Subscription Online News Services”

  2. I signed up today for Sully’s yearly plan;actually i gave him $25 (he asks for $19.99 but there is option to give more). I visit his site daily to multiple times a day and enjoy his commentary and his ability to point me to info that’s interesting and makes me think.
    I would happily pay for most of my online reading. There are about 10 blogs I go to daily (11D is one!) and all those bloggers deserve something for the time and thought they put into their writing.(I try to buy my amazon products thru a bloggers link whenver I shop there) And, really, $25 a year is a bargain for reading every single day.I think I pay the NY Times online edition about $16 a month and to be honest I don’t always get to their site every day.
    I hope Sully makes it and other online writers get the opportunity to do similar ventures. I’ll pay.

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  4. I can’t imagine paying to read Andrew Sullivan, but I would definitely pay to read Laura McKenna. However, I’m not sure I would pay enough to live on, so this model is problematic.

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  5. You guys are too sweet.
    I am interested to see if Sully can make a go of it. The Atlantic is going to start charging for access to its online content, too. In the past, I have refused to pay for online articles, but I’m starting to change my mind on that one.

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  6. I think people will only start paying when content providers start giving away the milk for free. I see that start to happen as more writers give up the hard work, deciding the intangible rewards aren’t enough.
    But phill there be enough true amateurs and hopeful pros and folks getting paid for another job to keep enough content out thre? And will people be willing to pay enough?
    (I’ve always seen that if I want online content, that I should be,willing to pay something.)

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  7. I think my comment got eaten. Sorry if it’s a repeat.
    Andrew Sullivan can only try to make this work because he has been giving his stuff away for free for a long time, so that he has built up a following.
    The only way the “next Andrew Sullivan” can think about doing this is to build up a following by giving his stuff away for free. That means there is always going to be a pipeline of people who want to be the next Andrew Sullivan. So, the Andrew Sullivan model implies that the Andrew Sullivan model can’t work.
    I have started and stopped reading Sullivan lots of time when he was free. I can’t think of any single columnist I would consistently pay for. Even Nate Silver, I would break into a cold sweat when I used up my 10 free New York Times articles for the month, and may have paid for his in October, but even then I wouldn’t pay for him in January.
    I pay $5 a month for the New Yorker on my Nook. And that’s more than I can possibly read. Why should I pay more for less or the same?

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