The Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free(traffic.piano.io)
traffic.piano.io
The Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free
https://traffic.piano.io/2017/12/11/the-information-doesnt-want-to-be-free/
18 comments
Sidenote: Stewart Brand's full quote is more complex: "Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive...That tension will not go away."
Summary: The Information is a subscription-only news publication covering Silicon Valley and the tech business. It has 10,000 subscribers and is a must-read for tech elites.
Its founder, Jessica Lessin, argues that ad revenue promotes high-volume sensationalist noise, whereas subscription revenue promotes deep journalism. Lessin is running an accelerator for subscription-only science and local news: https://www.theinformation.com/announcing-the-information-ac...
Others argue that B2B publications are easiest to run subscription-only. The Information provides exclusive business value such as earnings calls and org charts.
Its founder, Jessica Lessin, argues that ad revenue promotes high-volume sensationalist noise, whereas subscription revenue promotes deep journalism. Lessin is running an accelerator for subscription-only science and local news: https://www.theinformation.com/announcing-the-information-ac...
Others argue that B2B publications are easiest to run subscription-only. The Information provides exclusive business value such as earnings calls and org charts.
A minor detail: "To woo [reporters], Lessin offers compensation that consists of their former base salary plus 10 percent."
AB 168 recently banned this practice in California, to make salaries more equitable.
AB 168 recently banned this practice in California, to make salaries more equitable.
Link to the bill:
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
The meta lesson of this article is an example of decent content marketing.
Back in the day, we had Esther Dyson's Release 1.0, which similarly had a limited but very influential audience who paid for the rather pricey subscription, and was published in an archaic medium (email is the new paper, I guess).
They also have a podcast which covers their biggest stories of the week with interviews of reporters who wrote them. It is free and not very long, so if you like podcasts I would check it out.
Don't want to give away email to anybody so is the first part of the article the gist of things?
https://outline.com/kngJrL if you want to read the entire article
Thanks for sharing! Really enjoyed the article.
irony.
use a mailinator.com address if you want to quickly browse something :)
The original 10 minute mail was my favorite, I forget which one it is among the clones, but a great service.
Something requiring an email address in exchange for access, that is
So much capital movement in VC circles, don't be surprised that the gossip about it sells too.
EDIT: not that it isn't interesting. It would just be beneficial to readers to know what they are getting into.