The subscription business model is everywhere we look. Subscriptions dominate the current market, keeping consumers in an endless loop of recurring payments. Often, we seek subscriptions for movies and TV, like Netflix, or music, like Spotify. They have even seeped into the professional world. Every day, another subscription service seems to pop up, selling skincare or meal kits right to your door.
News is one of the most lasting products of the subscription model. From the era of newsboys and paper routes, people have paid for their news for a while — even if it used to look like subscribing to receive a paper on their porch step delivered by a child on a bike.
It made perfect sense to subscribe in that era. News was far less accessible without the Internet, which is capable of spreading news like wildfire in the 21st century. However, with the rapid decline of print journalism, consumers now receive most of their news through digital means like TV, websites and social media, a shift that significantly altered the news consumption landscape.
With an ever-changing media environment and paywalls in well-known digital news sources, the longstanding news subscription model is hard to maintain. In a world saturated with social media — where information is delivered in free, vertical, bite-sized pieces — many readers may feel it is not important to subscribe to news outlets.
This subscription model poses a threat to our current political climate. When readers cannot access well-researched reporting because of paywalls, they turn to more affordable outlets that do not require subscriptions.
News consumers who cannot afford subscriptions may rely on less reputable news through social media. When consumers turn to more polarized sources, they become trapped in a different media world, one that frames their perspectives quite differently than those on the other end of the political spectrum.
This is not unlike newspapers that were distributed soon after the founding of America. These initial newspapers were very politicized, skewing facts to enhance readership — further polarizing public opinion across the newly-established country.
Not only does the current subscription model contribute to polarization, but it also contributes to the lack of civic education. Paywalls and subscription models favor those who can afford the price and those who are often already educated readers. This leaves those who cannot afford these outlets behind.
However, news does not have to be free to be made more accessible. If the advertising business model is a dying art and subscription models influence polarization and lack of civic education, how will papers make money?
