April 27, 2023

"We believe in the democratization of content."

Said Time CEO Jessica Sibley, quoted in "Time to remove digital paywall" (Axios).

44 comments:

Kai Akker said...

--- Time CEO

Oh, Althouse! Everyone knows Time went defunct years ago. You are such a nostalgian.

Sebastian said...

"Time to remove digital paywall"

Paywalls coming down, Substacks going up: everyone's reverting to the Althouse model.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Democracy!

The left throw it around like the very word has healing powers.

As for Time - my guess is they don't have enough people willing to pay - so the someone like Soros can fund it and it can be another mouthpiece for The Party (D).

wendybar said...


As for Time - my guess is they don't have enough people willing to pay - so the someone like Soros can fund it and it can be another mouthpiece for The Party (D).

4/27/23, 12:34 PM

It's already a mouthpiece for the Party (D). That's why they are giving it away for free.

gilbar said...

Does Time even still exist?
They sent me their magazine for free, for Years and Years.. But they must of ran out of money for that too

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

tip toe thru MY typos. my keyboard is overwhelmed with the higher power of DEMOCRACY!

n.n said...

da-

*dā-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to divide."

It forms all or part of: betide; daimon; Damocles; deal (v.); deal (n.1) "part, portion;" demagogue; demiurge; democracy; demography; demon; demotic; dole; endemic; epidemic; eudaemonic; geodesic; geodesy; ordeal; pandemic; pandemonium; tidal; tide (n.) "rise and fall of the sea;" tidings; tidy; time; zeitgeist.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit dati "cuts, divides;" Greek dēmos "people, land," perhaps literally "division of society," daiesthai "to divide;" Old Irish dam "troop, company;" Old English tid "point or portion of time," German Zeit "time."


What lies beneath.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

We believe in the democratization of content.

Translation: Nobody's willing to pay for our crap.

Enigma said...

"We believe that our paywall model has failed and we must rely on free content with ads to survive."

Time | Life

Life magazine is gone. Time might as well go away because weekly news recaps died a full 20 years ago.

chickelit said...

Time magazine is in trouble? Dental offices of the world unite!

Drago said...

"Time to remove digital paywall"....once we figured out we'll never get enough people to pay for it, because our content is of no real value...we'll just....uh....lets see now....give it away for free as if it was always our intent!!!

That's the ticket!

rehajm said...

Yeahhhhh…how many of those ‘subscribers’ are paying subscribers? …and is this the same TIME what offered me a subscription for $1 a while back?

I’m uncertain why their leftie leaders are interested in yet another outlet for their propaganda at a time when they are consolidating others?

tim maguire said...

Under the old dead tree model, advertising sales paid for the cost of producing the magazine. Subscription costs were just for postage. Which is why newsstand prices were so much higher--newsstand sales weren't as valuable to advertisers because they were more random, you couldn't anticipate or know much about who's buying.

If we continue to follow the logic, all this stuff should be free since mailing costs no longer exist; paywalls should have never gone up. Getting more eyeballs in the door is much more valuable than the pittance paid by subscribers.

CJinPA said...

No one was paying, that's why. They'll take whatever ad revenue they can and be happy.

The number of people buying their explanation equals the number buying their subscriptions: few.

rhhardin said...

The people can find out who is man of the year.

MadisonMan said...

Maybe I'm cynical.
I conclude that they've decided they'll get more ad revenue than what they'll miss from subscription revenue. Follow the money.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

DEMOCRACY! for most democrats is the welcome corrupt condition of a ONE PARTY STATE.

madAsHell said...

They have nothing anybody wants to read.

Eric said...

I suppose that this means that even librarians, spending other peoples' money, were no longer willing to pony up.

William said...

Paywall, shmaywall - - I wouldn't read anything time printed if they paid ME to read it!

Carol said...

Didn't Time used to run the Clintoons comic strip back in the 90s? That was droll.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Time has their archive available, without a paywall?

TIL

Narayanan said...

If we continue to follow the logic, all this stuff should be free since mailing costs no longer exist; paywalls should have never gone up. Getting more eyeballs in the door is much more valuable than the pittance paid by subscribers.
==========
how then to explain streaming services with subscription?

'paywall paid by any other name' >>> Fees paid by cable carriers

Fox Corporation sales depend in part on fees paid by cable carriers like Comcast and Dish Network that distribute the company's broadcasts.

Over the three months ending in December, such fees delivered $1.7 billion or 37% of Fox Corporation revenue, the company's latest earnings report showed.


Kevin said...

Democracy.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

typingtalker said...

Interesting factoid ...

"It only costs 19 cents per piece to send out a volume of magazines under USPS periodicals."

Simple Fulfillment

As Mad Magazine used to say, "Cheap!"

typingtalker said...

Interesting factoid ...

"It only costs 19 cents per piece to send out a volume of magazines under USPS periodicals."

Simple Fulfillment

As Mad Magazine used to say, "Cheap!"

Yancey Ward said...

And the readers are still going to be overpaying.

narciso said...

its dead jim, died of trump derangement syndrome

lonejustice said...

I think this is a good thing. I hope other media institutions will follow suit. The more free speech, the better.

Mark said...

I assume Time's subscription worked about as well as Twitter's subscription model currently is.

If there's no great value added, people aren't gonna pay.

Quaestor said...

Time Magazine's paywall has always implied there's something worth the money spent on the other side of the wall, but there never was and everyone knew it. Consequently, the paywall costs Time Magazine more to administer than it yields in revenue, hence the "democratization".

boatbuilder said...

"Time" has a paywall?

Who? I mean...WHO? Would pay for "Time" Magazine?

PM said...

Once in Frankfurt, I bought a Time in English. In it, Arthur C. Clarke had written a piece about a way to launch rockets using a cable and platform to save fuel. For kicks I wrote a song about it and sent it to him in Sri Lanka. He actually wrote back. That was decades ago and the last Time I ever bought. Pretty ungrateful of me.

Prairie Wrench said...

There is no business case for paying people to produce a product given away for free.

Lilly, a dog said...

I really have grown to hate the word "Content." It seems to me that the younger generations are being deliberately trained on repetition and reinforcement of false ideals. There really is no more innovation or growth involved. Just cram as many untruths as you can fit onto your website, and try to make sure everyone sees it.

PB said...

Last gasp.

Try some real reporting of real news without bias, Time.

Quaestor said...

Mark writes "I assume Time's subscription worked about as well as Twitter's subscription model currently is."

As usual, Mark assumes incorrectly. Time is a discredited brand, which is why its current owners were able to purchase its desiccated husk for literal pennies. Unfortunately, years of insipid content have done its predictable work. On the other hand, Twitter is finally poised to achieve a profit in fiscal 2024, something Twitter has failed to show in years. It was Twitter's red ink that made Elon's whirlwind purchase offer so attractive to the shareholders.

Quaestor said...

Time Magazine had the ill fortune to transition from ink on paper to bits in cyberspace just as the last of the real journalists lauded on its masthead retired, clearing the decks for a horde of J-school propagandists to swarm over the gunnels and drive the good ship Time onto the lee shore of wokism. So there she rots, grounded and worm-eaten. Arrrh.

Bunkypotatohead said...

When does their Trans of the Year issue come out?

Jamie said...

When does their Trans of the Year issue come out?


No such thing. It's like saying "I remember back..." - it's redundant. A trans woman is a woman. A trans man is a man.

Right?

Drago said...

Mark writes "I assume Time's subscription worked about as well as Twitter's subscription model currently is."

Quaestor: "As usual, Mark assumes incorrectly."

He ain't known as Dumb Lefty Mark for nuttin'.

gahrie said...

In high school and college I used to lug around milk crates full of Time magazines for my speech tournaments. (extemporaneous speaking) I haven't read Time (or U.S. News, and I think there was a third one) since college graduation.

gahrie said...

In high school and college I used to lug around milk crates full of Time magazines for my speech tournaments. (extemporaneous speaking) I haven't read Time (or U.S. News, and I think there was a third one) since college graduation.

Mark said...

Quaestor, I believe Twitter is going to turn a profit about as much as I believe Musk's claims that Tesla will be self driving this year (something he has incorrectly claimed for years now)