It also dies behind dark patterns that prevent you from canceling the subscription. I've subscribed to a few publications over the years but not any more.
After getting burned a few times from an easy to sign up but impossible to cancel user experience I have sworn them all off.
I refuse to support subscriptions that require talking to a person. And waiting on hold and having to navigate the operator trying to prevent you from canceling. In my experience all media and news subscriptions do this.
Once signed up for the WSJ. Took 10 minutes just put in my credit card and address, got a sign up discount, and boom was done.
3 months later I needed to cancel. It turns out you can only cancel by a phone call, during their business hours on the east coast. Of course that wasn't the end because then it was probably twenty minutes on hold and fighting with. "No I want to cancel. No I don't care if you offer me a discount, I am pissed you made me call in to cancel. No I don't want to suspend I want to quit."
Swore I would never purchase them again if they are going to do something like that.
An interesting dilemma for media owners - the subscription model is the future of news, yet the self suppression of reach that this necessarily entails means that media owners now have far less influence over politics than they did during the ad-funded era, hence this unsatisfactory half-way house of 'its free when we want to influence your voting behaviour'
Also: democracy isn't dying just because media stops have the reach it once did. People will still vote, that is not being suppressed
It's already called out in the article, "(Yes, you may face this very dilemma reading this story in The Atlantic.)"
The author doesn't have control over the paywall policy, and he probably isn't a full-time journalist. So I don't think this is as much of a "gotcha" as other comments make it out to be.
I think a more-specific example of guarded democracy would be politicians whom only communicate with the public via gardened walls (e.g. Facebook, Twitter).
Yes, it's behind a paywall. mitchbob posted the archive link, and as I have noted, when factual information is paywalled, only lies, propaganda and conspiracy theories will be free to many.
A raft of subscriptions is ridiculous and dangerous. Every one increases your odds of identity theft.
And the idea is not new. "Someone" created a cool graphic a long time ago.
strict9|1 year ago
After getting burned a few times from an easy to sign up but impossible to cancel user experience I have sworn them all off.
I refuse to support subscriptions that require talking to a person. And waiting on hold and having to navigate the operator trying to prevent you from canceling. In my experience all media and news subscriptions do this.
gustavus|1 year ago
3 months later I needed to cancel. It turns out you can only cancel by a phone call, during their business hours on the east coast. Of course that wasn't the end because then it was probably twenty minutes on hold and fighting with. "No I want to cancel. No I don't care if you offer me a discount, I am pissed you made me call in to cancel. No I don't want to suspend I want to quit."
Swore I would never purchase them again if they are going to do something like that.
daymanstep|1 year ago
hunglee2|1 year ago
Also: democracy isn't dying just because media stops have the reach it once did. People will still vote, that is not being suppressed
macintux|1 year ago
Some would vehemently disagree with the second part of that sentence. Voter suppression is practically a plank of one of the two U.S. major parties.
And is voting still meaningful if most people are ignorant of what's happening in the shadows?
royal__|1 year ago
jlund-molfese|1 year ago
The author doesn't have control over the paywall policy, and he probably isn't a full-time journalist. So I don't think this is as much of a "gotcha" as other comments make it out to be.
But, interestingly enough, another author wrote a very similar, non-paywalled article at https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2022/all-news-election-ar... a few years ago! I wonder if Stengel was aware of it.
ProllyInfamous|1 year ago
mitchbob|1 year ago
sokolova46|1 year ago
SamuelAdams|1 year ago
k310|1 year ago
A raft of subscriptions is ridiculous and dangerous. Every one increases your odds of identity theft.
And the idea is not new. "Someone" created a cool graphic a long time ago.
https://i.ibb.co/d663L0X/waoi.jpg