I'm pretty new to this site, and I see no problem with having the potential of paying for a subscription.
Except that I'm not sure it's a good idea to cut-out the advertisers to subscribers, except perhaps to the very top tier.
Because you might find it harder to get advertising revenue then, and then you'll have to cut back on what you do.
Which is bad for everyone.
Like no more business jet for Wizzard....:-}
If I paid an optional subscription, I'd like to get some value for it: not just not having to see silly ads.
Maybe a chance to vote on , or suggest some specific items, where other subscribers voted.
But then they'd be open to everyone.
I don't see the ads as very annoying on TPU, say compared to Tom's Hardware.
And I really like the overall organisation in TPU: the general professionalism of it.
I think the people who are uneasy about the idea of a subscription are forgetting about the history of journalism.
Go back to when everything was print format, and the business model ranged from 100% supported by industry, as a sort of mouthpiece for it, to the other extreme of 100% subscription based.
And in between, you'd have some degree of advertising revenue: ranging from a small fraction to a very large one.
In addition, some were run at a loss by the publisher for various reasons: political, altruistic or perhaps as a loss leader to their other concerns.
All this changed with electronic media, and a lot of the older journals have gun belly up.
Although a lot of new ones sprang up: some good, some mediocre, and some really bad.
And because it's very hard to collect from the readers for them, so a lot have gone onto getting a very large fraction from advertising.
And I think that's really hurt the clout of journals.
Look at the NY Times.
It went from print format, to both print and digital.
And it hasn't been an easy time, but it just passed 5 million paid subscribers now, with over 85% of them digital.
Out of $191 million advertising revenue, $103 million as digital.
With $264 million revenue from digital subscriptions.
And its newsroom staff is now at 1,600 people: the highest in history.
I think it's a good journal, and I don't object to paying $125/year to read it on-line.
The Economist is at 1.7million paid readers, of which 870k is print.
59% of revenue was from subscription.
It costs more though: $200/year for digital and print combined.
But now you've got some clown putting a homemade video on YouTube, and telling you whatever they want to, and the more successful ones do it for $$$$.
A LOT of $$$ in some cases.
Don't get me wrong, I really like Youtube.
And I'm not against someone making money from what they spend time on if they're good at it.
Anyways, Mr. Wizzard and Co, keep up the good work.
Alan Jarvis
Sheffield
