[lrhegeba]

loved using blendle, for about 2 years i regularly spent about 50 EUR/m on articles. then the honeymoon phase of blendle and the publishers was over and it became clear the model just wont work. for publishers an article (usually sold for between 99 cents and 2 euro) is more than a product to be sold, as the price doesnt cover all costs. they usually have only a handful of "flagship articles" with some kind of exclusive content. they need these to capture the audience into subscriptions. this regular audience can then also be sold ads and merchandise/other stuff.

for me as user it was essential that i had access to more than 80% of the best articles of all publications for sale. as most publishers came to see that publishing their flagship articles cannibalized them selling subscriptions and eliminated their secondary revenue streams they resorted to periodically publishing only some bait articles to lure audiences to their core offers. thus the incentives of all 3 (me as user, publishers, blendle) did not align and its usefullness as a product suffered. some publishers tried to raise the price of their flagship articles to cover more of their costs, but who pays 4 EUR for a single article? so, the business model just doesnt work. enjoyed it while it lasted though