- Does reading The Baffler trap you in its ecosystem? If you cancel The Baffler do you lose functionality?
- If The Baffler closes up shop because it was bought by a larger newsletter does it brick any of your devices?
- I turned uBlock off for this page (it was blocking 6 things) and there are no ads. Can you say the same thing for Netflix or fricking Windows?
- Does The Baffler take what you give it and resell it because its 5,000 word privacy policy which you didn't read but had to agree to says it can?
- Will The Baffler's third rate security practices release your identity and those of your customers to private auctions on the dark web?
This is how the newsletter supports itself. Looks like it's about $5 per article. In a period where everybody expects web content for free, we're paying literally trillions to subscribe to software products. As somebody who works for a content organization I'm now asking myself what aspects of the SaSS model can we take up to get people to pay our writers and editors to continue producing local news? I guess we just need to figure out what content people are keeping in spreadsheets.
Making a website or newsletter requires an ongoing investment in people to produce content. So it's ideal to have an ongoing stream of subscription revenue to match that ongoing cost. As a user I happily subscribe to certain news outlets because I recognise the value they provide to me on an ongoing basis and think it's a fair quid pro quo.
Lots of things that people expect from software (ongoing updates, support, online features etc) incur an ongoing cost from the team so a subscription-type model is also better for the software company than a one-off payment.
So you can see why saas businesses and their investors like it. I think what they often fail to do, is show users that this model represents a good deal for them also. In other words they want to charge for software as a service but actually only provide software as a subscription (without real service behind it).
Ie if you're charging a subscription the user should get great support. They should get ongoing updates etc etc - things which cost money on an ongoing basis.
