The prevailing view of Apple News+ among newspaper publishers has been that the deal doesn’t make sense for the big boys. It would cannibalise their own digital subscriptions, and also means that Apple owns the relationship with their readers.
The New York Times, for example, not only refused to sign up itself, but also went on record explaining why it believes other newspapers should follow its lead …
CEO Mark Thompson made the case against.
The Washington Post also opted out.
[He also] warned that relying on third-party distribution can be dangerous for publishers who risk losing control over their own product.
“We tend to be quite leery about the idea of almost habituating people to find our journalism somewhere else,” he told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.
But, despite an earlier suggestion to the contrary, the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal did sign up – and tech & media journalist Simon Owens argues that they made the right decision.
First, he says, even if you have access to some content from a paper through the app, that doesn’t mean you’ll cancel your direct subscription.
Then there’s the model the Wall Street Journal chose: making only selected content available through Apple News+. The paper makes only three days’ of archives available to Apple subscribers, and is reportedly created with specific and limited content for the app.
Now think about the ways you typically consume news. You might be following a link on Twitter or Facebook. Or perhaps someone emails you a URL to an article. Maybe you’re a regular visitor to a newspaper’s website. In all these use cases, Apple News Plus isn’t a viable option for you. If you’re on your desktop and follow a tweeted link to the Wall Street Journal, are you then going to pull out your iPhone and start hunting through the app for that exact article? Probably not!
Limited access to data is another objection that’s been made: it is Apple, not publishers, who will know who is consuming which stories. But Owens says that’s also nothing new.
Ultimately, he suggests, it will be like streaming music. Labels might not like it, but it’s worked out well for them.
What’s your view? Let us know in the comments.
