I emailed the papers the other day after the new (mad) regime was announced. I doubt anyone sensible will reply....
Hello Times and Sunday Times online Marketing Dept
Constructive Feedback on your new Subscription Scheme (and I why I will only join after you alter it....)
Who am I ? I'm a regular, enthusiastic reader of the Sunday Times and (less frequently) the Times in paper format. I have been reading your papers for 40 years. I am also a web-cognisant businessperson: I own several businesses in the IT sector and work in web-specific technologies so I am aware of the technical as well as commercial issues.
I'm sorry to say it but you have missed a very important point, in setting your present pricing scheme.
I might pay £2 a week - but NOT in the form you're currently promoting - let me explain why.
1. When I buy a broadsheet, I buy it for a specific experience. It is to sit down with a whole newspaper, and luxuriate, in having the whole paper to pick amongst and choose from, over a period. That period might last several days, even a week - but the reading has a minimum period too - any broadsheet buyer wants to sit down over a coffee and spend a minimum of 20 or 30 or 40 minutes in the sheer pleasure of reading, just to get started. SO - when I do that, I don't mind paying £2 for that much enjoyment: the coffee I buy to go with it will cost at least that much.
2. However, when I read online, it is a completely different experience, and a different mode of reading. I can still read for pure pleasure: but never in the same way as with a physical broadsheet. I, and a million people like me, am more likely to 'dip in' for single articles to get our updates in smaller snippets. I'm also much more likely to arrive there from an aggreator link (NewsNow being my starting point most mornings) - impossible too if your 'paywall' blocks them - or I'm likely to go electively and search, to catch up on a specific story.
This being so, I and readers like me are reading much more incrementally: small fragments, not the 'big swig' of reading that the real paper gives.
3. So - CRUCIALLY: I DO NOT MIND PAYING for that incremental reading: I don't even mind putting my money on a credit with you: but I want to SPEND the money, incrementally - same way as I read. That means micropayments, not flat subscriptions.
I would be perfectly happy to put £10 on credit with my 'Times Account' : but I don't want to be told it has 'expired' because I've been away. If I've not read, then I've not spent: a flat subscription is you taking my money when I'm not looking. Micropayment (pence per article charged from pre-credit at the moment of opening) is spending electively.
4. MICROPAYMENT. Think about it: there are lots of models of Micropayment already proven working. Anyone with a Pay As You Go phone ( a massive acknowledged commercial sucess as a charging model) is using micropayment: they don't get charged when they don't make calls: they pay WHEN they make calls. Exactly the same with pre-credit VOIP telephone accounts: we put credit up ahead for the next few months use, but only spend the money when we make calls: businesses all over the world now use VOIP instead of legacy telephones and they all pay like this.
I do hope you see the light. Else no-one will read your columnists ever again. The site does seem 'dark'. Whatever will Jeremy Clarkson do if he thinks no-one is listening ?
CHARGE ME UP FRONT, but let me spend on a per-article (repeat-read allowed once paid) basis, and I'll join tomorrow. So - not till you institute micropayments.
No reason not to really: why not just offer both options ?
Good luck
ThatColumn
