Microsoft and Internet Explorer are never, ever, ever, getting back together: Yesterday’s update to Edge makes it impossible to launch IE 11 on most client versions of Windows 10.
Keeping quality journalism accessible and sustainable
“Paywalls are terrible. No one likes hitting one and feeling like they wasted their time.”
Been there. Felt that.
Problems with paywalls: The emergency of paywalls in journalism came hand-in-hand with the subscriptionization of the internet. It seemed like a good idea at first. Then they were everywhere, always. And while we sympathize with the commenter above, it isn’t just content consumers who got fed up with them. Journalists hate them too.
Maker Yehong Zhu had firsthand experience with this as a business writer at Forbes.
“At the time, digital content was largely free, and the margins on advertising were razor-thin,” Zhu remembers. So, publishers started trialing subscription paywalls. "But paywalls aren’t a perfect solution. It’s unrealistic to ask readers to pay for unlimited access across every news site.”
A win-win for creators and readers: Flash forward a few years—and some time served at Amazon and Twitter. Zhu founded Zette, a browser extension allowing readers to unlock article paywalls across the web, while sharing up to 50% of revenue with newsrooms. Zette gives readers access to publications like Forbes, The Daily News, and a number of local publications like The Miami Herald and The Sacramento Bee.
Revenue-sharing lets readers support journalism and access premium content from a diverse range of sources, for less. Maker Umurcan Yilmaz says the company is working on getting more national publications onboard, like the NY Times and Business Insider, though it's unclear what kind of progress has been made.
Perhaps more encouragement from journalists will encourage publishers to give Zette a shot. A number of supporters chimed in on the launch to vouch for the idea, saying it will “enable writers to reach more readers.”
Other features the team is working on include mobile platforms and pay-per-article features. So if you’re as fed up with paywalls as just about everyone else, you can give Zette a try for free.
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