From The Verge: Last month, when terms of Apple’s new deal for journalism were announced, I warned that it looked like a bad deal for publishers. The company was asking for 50 percent of all revenue, and planned to pay on the basis of how frequently readers consumed a publisher’s articles. And just as on Facebook and Google News before it, publishers would get no control over the placement of their stories, or direct relationship with their subscribers. It was one more algorithm standing in between journalists and their audiences — and at a time when digital media companies are rapidly shedding jobs, Apple’s offer looked truly grim.
It was all the more surprising when, in the days leading up to today’s announcement, it was reported that the Wall Street Journal would be part of Apple’s $9.99 monthly bundle. An annual subscription to the Journal costs hundreds of dollars — why would the company undercut itself so steeply?
Today we learned the answer: it would not. CNN’s Brian Stelter reported that, according to an internal Journal memo, Apple News Plus subscribers would get access to “a curated collection of general interest news.” More Journal articles may be available inside the app — but the idea seems to be that they will basically be impossible to find, Journal reporter Amol Sharma reported. Apple News Plus subscribers will see a cordoned-off Journal zone of commodity general-interest news, and the publisher seems to expect that most users won’t seek much beyond that.
As described, it’s an odd arrangement. On one hand, the Journal is giving away hundreds of dollars worth of stories for some unknown, varying fraction of $9.99 a month. On the other hand, the company betting — and not without reason — that no actual Journal user wants to read the newspaper this way. And with a billion active iOS device users now available to them with a couple of taps, anyone who opts in is basically free money.
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