While, in theory, picking and choosing for opinion/analysis (as opposed to news) is valid, in practice there are limits. It basically works for me with video streaming because I'm fine with having a limited number of streaming sources. I'm not sure I would be with $1/month for newsletters much less pay-per-article.
A position they held steadfast to when newspapers unionized and it became the norm. Their reliance on surprisingly young journalists (kind of like consultancy bodyshops that recruit out of uni) is one reason they were able to avoid them.
Newspapers have often been threatened by their more popular contributors leaving and taking subscribers with them.
They'd therefore never introduce bylines if they had the leverage relative to their journalists to avoid it just as McDonalds wouldnt offer free daycare if it werent struggling to hire and tech wouldnt offer free food and lavish comps.
>Your point--that reporting shouldn't be primarily about individual credibility
That doesnt seem like a point I would ever make.
I mean, you can justify it "in principle" however you like, the economics boil down to the relative leverage of management and journalists. Bylines function as an asset (reputation) that journalists can, in a sense, capitalize and gives them the leverage to take subscribers elsewhere allowing them to negotiate a greater share of the newspaper revenue (lowering profits).
If tech has a bad decade no doubt theyll suddenly "realize" that free breakfasts arent doing them any favors and scale them back.
I can easily get “the news” like you have access to TV or YouTube with similar content to streaming sites. But if you want niche subjects or specific voices, then sub stack subscriptions for the niches you care about makes sense
But Substack content seems to be much more about "voices" as you put it and that I'm far less interested in.
When there's only three channels or a single local newspaper, you get content that is appealing or at least acceptable to the mass market. The smaller the market, the more extreme the content. When you get to the level of individual writers, I think there's an inevitable radicalization when people only pay for content that really really targets their idiosyncratic interests.
Do you have any evidence to support this claim? I don’t think this is true.
This is the norm, I think. Surprise surprise nobody really wants the shopping channel or the landline that comes with their broadband either.
Newspapers are well aware of the threats of unbundling. It's one of the reasons why the Economist doesn't have bylines, for instance: writers have to remain a commodity.