Let me start by saying that I’m not against the subscription model, I understand that indie developers have to eat and so they charge a small subscription for me to use their app and for them to have a dependable income they can rely on.
The same principle goes for larger software houses (even if I like it much less) and same goes for my favorite creators, youtubers, podcasters, film makers, musicians etc.
Apparently the same goes for news outlets, as The Verge recently launched a subscription plan (starting Dec 2024), which I immedietly bought into - because I love The Verge, I think they’re great journalists asking the right questions about tech these days.
I also used to love Wired, 404 Media, The Washington Post and The New York Times. If I break down the pricing for all of these subscriptions it will be $308 a year, that’s in US Dollars, $308 for just staying informed.
That’s not including the $50 a year I already pay for The Verge subscription, to put it into perspective $308 is $8 more expensive than the original Nintendo Switch, that you only buy once and not every year.
It’s almost as expensive as buying an entry level iPad, which is $350 - almost exactly the same price as all those subscirptions + The Verge subscription.
So now we can think of it as buying a brand new iPad every year, just for staying informed and up to date with the news.
The iPad is as expensive as reading the news for 1 year. Image by PCMag.
Lately I noticed that everytime I wonder what happens in Wired, The Washington Post or any other news website I bump into a paywall, after a while I’ll just won’t bother going there and I’ll end up reading what’s new on The Verge instead, the subscription I already own (and again, I’m glad to pay - they’re doing a great job).
The problem here isn’t really if I pay or not pay for news, it’s not even how much I choose to pay, the problem here is much deeper than that. The problem is that without a second (or more) source of news, I have no way of verifying what’s actually happening in the world.
For example if I read The Verge and they run an article about president Trump data purge (don’t even get me started), is it a big deal for tech enthusiasts or is it a big deal for everyone? Is it just a little thing he does next to a much bigger and more teribble thing? Who knows.
I certainly have no way of knowing, once upon a time I could just look at the headlines on different news outlets and see if they’re all reporting on the same thing and by that I could realize if it’s big or just big for tech people.
That’s a classic single story danger, as most people know the term. Meaning if you’re only reading, or watching, a certain pespective - your perspective will get distorted with time, since you have no frame of reference to the truth anymore.
I know we’re living in a post-truth era and with the rise of AI it’s harder than ever to understand what’s really “true” anymore, but paying for news is a way to make sure we’ll never cross-reference anything and we’ll just read what is given to us in our own corner of the internet and take it as absolute truth.
While this dystopian view is reality, I still very much recommend for everyone to pick at least one outlet to follow, mine is The Verge but it doesn’t really matter which one as long as you believe the journalists who work there are looking to actually report and not just to maximize their bottom line.
The reason I think everyone should pick a news outlet is that even a mediocre one is better than just scrolling through social media and believing everything you read there, which are mostly lies and half-truths.
Social media posts are often click baits that were designed to outrage and to attract discourse, by their nature they will never reflect the true state of the world, any news outlet will do better.
I’ll stay with The Verge for now.