Martin Schori mocks the idea of “peak subscriptions” in a recent article featured by Bo Sacks.
The underlying reality is that – despite some recent growth – there’s been a leveling off in digital subscriptions. Why?
The article makes some important points.
First, you can’t make a good “digital subscription” by making a lousy “digital” version of a print product. That happens far too often. Someone signs up for digital and they get a PDF, or a completely rotten online interface.
These lousy digital experiences are competing for attention with services like TikTok and Netflix, which provide (so I’m told) an amazing user experience.
I don’t use TikTok, so I can’t comment on that, and I think Netflix has some very obvious weaknesses — for example, you can’t say “only show me movies,” or “only show me options that are below 30 minutes.” But despite that, Netflix is miles ahead of most publisher sites.
In this respect, Martin is completely correct – publishers would do a lot better if they focused on providing a product their customers want.
He doesn’t quite make this next point the way I would, so I’ll make it my way. Too much digital content is written to hide what the reader is looking for. E.g., “Here’s the secret ingredient you’re missing in your chili recipe,” and you have to read eighteen paragraphs to get it. (BTW, it’s probably fish sauce. I know that sounds disgusting, but it’s true.)
We all know the culprit that causes that kind of foolishness: advertising.
One problem I have with Martin’s analysis is that I think he’s mostly talking about news-based subscription publishing, and he’s missing the elephant in the room, which is that the news reporting is almost universally awful. A recent survey said 3/4 of adults believe the news is making us more partisan and more divided, and all I can ask in response to that is what is the other 1/4 smoking. 100 percent of us know that news is a partisan catastrophe.
It’s no wonder that news publishers are having trouble selling subscriptions because people don’t trust the news. Nor should they.
Having said that, Martin is drawing attention to some real issues that publishers should address.
If you’re a publisher, and you’d like to keep up with trends, new issues, or hear a contrary view from time to time, sign up for The Krehbiel Letter, and be sure to subscribe to this podcast.
