I see economy of scale as the key hold up here. A multi-source subscription that costs $10/month would be a no-brainer for a good number of subscribers but such an offering would immediately destroy the current subscriber base for publications like the NYT, Washington Post, Atlantic, etc. No one would continue to pay $10/month for one, when they could pay $10/month for all.
That would then mean that the $10/month all-you-can-eat plan would need to gain enough subscribers to offset the lost revenue from the old plan. Realistically it would have to result a 5 to 1 increase in new subscribers.
So you'd have to go back to an all-inclusive plan that is a discount over the individual plans but not a HUGE discount (let's say 20-35%). But then would that be compelling enough?
I'm sure that didn't hurt, but it was also helped by the fact that each song retains it's value long after creation - that's less true with news.
It took about 10 years longer than it should have. I'm also pretty sure that if piracy was something that could be effectively stopped - they'd raise their rates a thousand-fold.
Yes. Current pricing is based on the number of people paying for the provided service. The marginal cost per subscriber is negligible so it's fair to assume the price would go down if those services could attract more subscribers. It's also fair to assume subscriptions would increase if customers got access to more publications for the same price.
I think the question then becomes, how much are you willing to pay vs how much does such a service cost. Does the economy of scale factor in here? Right now most of those services ask for ~$10 a month. Expecting all of it for $10/month seems unlikely.
I could see a full service on-demand news service like that would (with the current pricing structure) run at least $50/month, which most people won't pay.
I think the music industry transitioned to streaming so well, because the recording companies were already dicking over the artists from the get-go.