Dear Publishers, Apple News+ is a Trick, Don’t Fall For It.
Dear Publishers,
I was at a conference for publishers in Berlin (Digital Innovator’s Summit), the day after Apple announced its news subscription product. We did a quick show of hands on the question “Who here thinks Apple News+ will be good for publishers? Absolutely no one raised their hands. At least in the room, there was a resounding rejection from publishers. Of course many publishers in that room probably rushed off to sign up for the product (at least as an end consumer). My worry is that Apple News+ is the worst thing to happen to Publishers since Facebook or maybe even since that silly notion that “Information wants to be free.”
For a cool $9.99, Apple News+ lets users subscribe to a list of publishers (who for the most part already have their own subscription product). There’s a lot of excitement because there are an estimated 1.4 billion active Apple devices, just imagine the distribution opportunity. But it’s a trick.
In the last 7 years since media giants like The New York Times, WashPo, WSJ, Financial Times, and The Economist have been leading the charge toward toward paid-for journalism, there are a couple of things we’ve learned about what it takes to build a subscriptions business.
The key tenets of a successful subscription business are what i like to call IRR — Identity, Relationship, and Routine. Apple News+ is going to destroy your ability to master these tenets.
Identity
It turns out people who subscribe do so in part because they believe in what the organisation stands for. Selling subscriptions is a consumer play, and consumer plays need advertising, That’s why we’ve seen publishers like The New York Times and The Economist roll out important Ads to show their readers where they draw the line and what it means to belong to that community. Readers subscribe to missions they are proud of.
Enter Apple News+ with the smoke and mirrors. As a publisher, putting your content on Apple News+, will slowly eat away at the brand you’ve been working hard to build or it will make you believe you don’t need to put any work into building a brand. Both options are disastrous for your going concern. The reader instead of coming to your owned platform, will see your work presented alongside that of many other publishers which could lead to the kind of perceived commoditisation of content that has been killing the business.
Relationship
Everyone has become kind of obsessed with data, why? It’s the important feedback from the many touch points we use to build a healthy relationship with our readers. From the first date when you get to know a little bit about them and how they want to use your platforms, to later dates when they begin to reveal more about their interests and you dish out experiments to see how they respond. Publishers have been working hard to perfect this dating culture with our readers.
Enter Apple News+, here to steal your bae. Hide your husbands, hide your wives. On the publisher page Apple tells you of all the wonderful data you will receive. First of all, Publishers can handle this themselves, second of all, they will never give you as much data as you can give yourself, lastly even if they give you all the data you desire, in a short time, they will weaponise the insights against you (the publisher).
Routine
No reader will continue subscribing if they don’t return to your platform habitually. We know that many people wakeup, brush their teeth, open up The New York Times App, or open an email from my own publication here in Nigeria. (BusinessDay). So we’ve put a lot of thought into building products that cultivate habitual readers.
Enter Apple News+ to usurp the throne. Your readers habits will now belong to Apple, not you. The reader will wake up in the morning and open Apple News+, not your App.
I don’t buy this idea that Apple News+ is bad for legacy publishers but maybe good for younger digital natives. It’s bad for everyone. Apple News+ is a shortcut, and the problem with shortcuts is you arrive prematurely and unprepared. My worry is that once we all sign up, Apple may do to publishers what it is currently doing to Spotify.
Once they’ve hooked you, like a python Apple will squeeze you out of a platform and audience that it now owns. Right now, publishers selling subscriptions through the App Store already pay Apple 30% off the top. What is stopping apple from increasing its commission on news subscriptions sales through the App Store from 30% to 40% just to push you toward Apple News+? The answer is nothing. Soon Apple may even invite publishers to pay for promotions on their News+ product.
Anything is possible when you are not the master of your fate.
Apple News+ is a beautiful product, and in many ways timely. There has been increasing worry about subscriber fatigue. How many news subscriptions can one subscriber have? But i think that’s where the beauty of competition lies, and it should be allowed to thrive. I’ve been looking forward to publishers battling it out. Enter Apple News+, here to trick publishers into thinking selling subscriptions is as easy as signing up on their platform! Actually Apple promises publishers revenue, not subscribers.
Publishers are just beginning to believe that they can actually get readers to pay for great information, of course not all will succeed but Apple wants to cripple your learning. Part of the journey of publishing now, is to be in charge of our own destiny. Apple is just another giant tech platform that wants to throw us off course. Don’t let them win.
Warm Regards,
Yvette Dimiri
A very concerned Media Enthusiast.
