Adriaan Basson | A new era for news as News24 prepares to launch digital subscriptions

[RaptorSA]

Well it is not like most of your posts are not depressing anyways....

I have nothing.

 

[grok]

Can someone please develop a filter to explode these paywalled news sites? I don't want their results, or even links from other sites to show up in my google searches.

If the rest of the web can survive on ads I cannot see why they can't..

 

[grok]

What are you going to do when all the local news sites move to this model? International sites won't have a fraction of the local content.

I''ll get my breaking news from mybroadband, as I currently do..

Plus its entertaining, since you get from geniuses on the topic to particular dumasses in the comments.

Maybe it's just me but I don't read any news site if they don't have a comments section, what is this 1974 with their one-way propaganda? LOL!

 

[RogerWilcoZA]

Where does the R99 come from? I don't see any mention of the cost in the article?

 

[Segg]

I already block javascript on their website to bypass their adblocker detection....
Their journalism is sensationalist at the best of times

 

[Flanders]

I''ll get my breaking news from mybroadband, as I currently do..

Plus its entertaining, since you get from geniuses on the topic to particular dumasses in the comments.

Maybe it's just me but I don't read any news site if they don't have a comments section, what is this 1974 with their one-way propaganda? LOL!

I remember the discussion on here some years back. The removal of comments sections was good according to libtards because it silenced the rayyyyyyycists! I was vehemently opposed as all it meant was that nobody could call out their BS.

Well, here we are.

 

[Hamster]

Who wants to pay for news? I get they need to make money, but who wants to pay for it?

You can get breaking news on twitter and can wait for the rest to be copy pasted and published by tech blogs a day or two later.

 

[John_Phoenix]

@bwana
NY Times, Washington Post, Telegraph, The Guardian, News24

One of these is not like the others...

 

[TEXTILE GUY]

I think social media has certainly changed the way we receive and consume "news".

Of course, theres fake news, perceived fake news, real fake news ---- the list goes on.
None the less, it is a message that is being shared, by someone known or unknown.

In the past, the tabloid was a bit of news, a bit of classified, some entertainment and the sports scores - that was worth a penny or two.

Pure "news" penned by someone I dont know for a penny - well can get that free via social media - so no.

Then theres the old adage - todays news is tomorrows history, and this albeit a bit stale, is a lot cheaper.

 

[Bismuth]

What are you going to do when all the local news sites move to this model? International sites won't have a fraction of the local content.

There are options, even if it's just headlines. That's how I read an article anyway. I have yet to come across a paywall that I need, or even want to, pay to get through.

I'll pay R299 of they put back the comments section, unmoderated.

Those were often more entertaining than the articles themselves!

 

[hjst45]

Someone care to add local sites to this list?

GitHub - iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome: Bypass Paywalls web browser extension for Chrome and Firefox.

Bypass Paywalls web browser extension for Chrome and Firefox. - GitHub - iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome: Bypass Paywalls web browser extension for Chrome and Firefox.

github.com

 

[The Free Radical]

Source?

They generally do good investigative journalism, not that I actually pay for or read it. It doesn't seem like something George could use.

Look through his Open Society Foundations recent Annual Reports.
Go to the tabulated grant recipient lists towards the back of the reports.
The evidence is there, as well as his funding of other institutions, NGOs, Universities and Media in SA who do his leftist divisive, aggitation bidding.

Annual Reports - Open Society Foundation for South Africa

Read our latest annual report: By the end of 2016, we had provided about 80 organisations with at least ZAR70 million in grants, with several being auto-renewal and multiyear grants.

www.osf.org.za

 

[lunch]

Not really relates but most modern news sites are completely cluttered with crap that detracts from the content. Use an extension called Mercury Reader to make them more accessible

 

[midasza]

Only successful paywall sites have been internationally well know titles with a worldwide following, or local sites where the actual paywall subscriptions didn't increase revenue of advertising but led to a increase of print subscriptions and print advertising (Des Moine Register is sited as an example), and if you read articles about other site who have failed, the key differentiating factor was uniqueness of content, if your content is world renown or so unique people just have to have it then paywalls work, if they don't, they wont. Now I have heard how news24 is the biggest website for number of daily visits in South Africa, but I also know how quickly people will switch to a new app if it saves them money and I suspect that they will be back from behind the paywall uber quickly when no one signs up. I also suspect netwerk24 works precisely because its content is unique and well suited to the community it served and they therefore were/are willing to pay for it. I suspect that they look at the millions of daily views and go, if we could only convert 1% of those people to subscribers then we are in the money, but I suspect that most people are more like me and when the telegraph moved 90% of their articles behind the paywall I moved to reading the guardian and bbcnews.

 

[Bismuth]

...stuff about paywalls...

I agree, offer something unique, and people will happily pay for it. I don't pay for Netwerk24, and never will, but I am glad they are making a success of it.

However, I think that News24 are making rather large assumptions here. While they may be the largest site based on daily visitors, this will change once a paywall is introduced. Maybe even people will be will to pay to make it worth their while, but there is that risk that the opposite will happen, and they will have to remove the paywall to survive.

The same logic was applied to Etolls, they saw all the vehicles using the highway, and just saw RRRRs. If this is the logic that News24 are using to implement a paywall, it will fail as dismally as the Etolls have, if not worse. While people have limited alternatives to using the highways, there are numerous, free, alternatives to News24 I think.

 

[Craig_]

Wait for someone to post here on the Forum.

I do this anyway. I very seldom go onto news24.

 

[Mrcricket]

There will always be a need for local newsrooms. Their is authentic South African news which needs to be reported and which the international news groups won't be able to access.

The world of Journalism and News 24 will continue in some form but be radically different in future.

People said that theatre would be killed by the introduction of cinemas, that did not exactly happen.

 

[FiestaST]

 

[rambo919]

You know.... things are dire when you start agreeing with RG on a daily basis.....

 

[PsyWulf]

If they didn't force ****ing taboola ads and the like (super spam clickbait ad-provider) i'd happily have left their site ad-enabled

Not a big stretch to imagine they'd happily offer plague blankets to their readers for money