Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should follow
59 comments
·March 18, 2025andrewvc
karmelapple
I have subscribed to them for other reasons recently, and this only solidifies my subscription to remain for another year.
I sure don't work for anything close to Wired or their parent organization, but if you want good journalism, support it with your dollars. A year's subscription is less than a nice dinner out (or even a not-so-nice dinner out!).
JohnTHaller
I subscribed to Wired a few weeks ago specifically because they were doing good reporting on things that other media was letting slid.
scarecrowbob
A lot of my paid media consumption comes from podcasts which create enough free content to keep me engaged but which offer enough extra content that I want to pay for that content.
At the scale of "small but functionally profitable podcasts" it seems to be working, so it's not like that model can't work out of hand.
I am not sure it will work for print publishing, but it seems to be working for the patreon-funded folks.
duxup
The users of the internet want things for free and then we complain when we don’t get it…. Or when someone else pays for it… :(
JumpCrisscross
> it’s just as possible that readers will recognize this sacrifice and reward these outlets with more traffic and subscriptions in the long run
These hybrid models don't work. Depend entirely on generosity, e.g. Wikipedia. Sell your damn product. Or sell your readers' eyeballs.
I've hands down seen the best journalism from categories 1 and 2: folks focussed on the mission or confident enough in their quality to paywall everything. I've rarely seen it from 3. I've almost never seen it from those who try mixing. (The exception being those who sell traditional, i.e. non-targeted, ads.)
inetknght
> Depend entirely on generosity, e.g. Wikipedia.
So... quite profitable?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AFundraising_statis...
johnmaguire
There's the other hybrid approach of depending on government funding and generosity (i.e. NPR.) Though I'm not sure that's a great option in this climate either.
JumpCrisscross
> other hybrid approach of depending on government funding and generosity (i.e. NPR.)
About 30%, and indirectly at that: "eligible public radio stations may apply to receive annual grants directly from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)" [1].
[1] https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...
gowld
"Government funding" is generosity.
derektank
Unless you're already a name brand (e.g. the NYT, a handful of very high profile columnists, etc.) you can't just assume people will know the value of your work. You have to demonstrate it in some way. Providing half your content for free while keeping half behind a paywall seems like a perfectly reasonable strategy to address this discoverability problem.
I can't speak to the broader effectiveness of this strategy, but I know that I have paid to see some of a writer's paywalled work after first being exposed to their free content.
JumpCrisscross
> Unless you're already a name brand (e.g. the NYT, a handful of very high profile columnists, etc.) you can't just assume people will know the value of your work
Sure. This problem is conserved across private enterprise.
> providing half your content for free while keeping half behind a paywall seems like a perfectly reasonable strategy to address this discoverability problem
The New York Times runs a 12% operating margin [1]. Giving away half their content without sacrificing quality would require incurring the same 88¢ of costs for 50¢ of revenue; it just doesn't work. Sales and marketing is usually a single-digit percent of revenue for a reason [2].
The partial-reveal strategy particularly fails for news because I can now decide which articles I'll run through the Internet Archive. If you paywall everything, that's too tedious.
[1] https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/2024/11/Q324-Press-Release-...
[2] https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/BFI_WP_2...
troyvit
> You have to demonstrate it in some way. Providing half your content for free while keeping half behind a paywall seems like a perfectly reasonable strategy to address this discoverability problem.
I feel like 404media is doing a good job at that. They irritate me sometimes but they break a lot of great news with a tiny staff and have an indomitable social media presence (at least on bluesky) that really gets people talking about them. Don't get me wrong, I'll never pay for their work because I feel like they get a little user hostile sometimes[1], but people less curmudgeonly probably are subscribing.
davidw
Among many other things that are seeing titanic shifts right now is the media landscape. Wired has been doing some excellent reporting on a lot of recent events while you have storied outfits like the Washington Post muzzled by their owner.
JumpCrisscross
> while you have storied outfits like the Washington Post muzzled by their owner
I guess it shouldn't still be surprising that a joint-stock company with diverse owners outperforms a closely-held company again, but here I am, genuinely surprised. (I previously thought a rich patron could stand up to power. But Kay Graham was special. Bezos is another coward.)
vkou
A rich patron can stand up to power when power plays by the rules.
This regime does not. It is above the law. If you're interested in the endgame of this sort of thing, just look at Russia. No shortage of rich people there, but not a lot of them interested in pushing back.
dehrmann
Do you think the Newhouses are more reliable owners than Bezos?
And they might be. Journalism is their business. If Bezos had to choose between Amazon and WaPo, he'd choose Amazon.
roughly
> If Bezos had to choose between Amazon and WaPo, he'd choose Amazon.
And did.
MrMcCall
So many have been bought up by GOP fascististas.
"Follow the money." is sound advice, but always remember that:
"Shit rolls downhill."
inquirerGeneral
[dead]
xnx
I'm surprised FOIA hasn't been "deleted" yet.
ale42
I'm pretty sure they already thought about it. By the way, the FOIA process certainly has a cost which needs to be optimized out...
jancsika
> By the way, the FOIA process certainly has a cost which needs to be optimized out...
Meaning 1: Republicans might very well try to get rid of a democratic check on power under the cover of "reducing waste" and that is bad and I don't want it to happen.
Meaning 2: I believe the government works essentially like a compiler and therefore optimizing out anything in the name of efficiency is actually a "good thing."
I can't follow the "be generous" rule of HN because I cannot tell from your comment which one you mean. Could you clarify?
Edit: maybe more important-- I'm not sure which interpretation HN would take to be generous here.
mnkv
I think it's pretty obvious it's 1. Given the recent huge, clearly politically-motivated cuts from the current administration, it feels pretty likely that FOIA could be disrupted under the guise of "cost-saving".
And I think you're supposed to be generous to the commenter, not the current administration ;)
Kapura
What are you suggesting?
None4U
That some may consider FOIA a source of "government inefficiency", perhaps
null
techright75
Ah yes, more fearmongering by the far left members of Hacker News.
qingcharles
You're not paranoid if you're right.
rectang
The suitable rejoinder to every tired old "somebody else's content needs to be given away" argument is the Content Creator's Creed from Goodfellas (NSFW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c3bhh8fqYs
As if journalism hasn't been a shrinking industry for decades. "But surely FOIA articles are different and are the perfect loss leader". No they are not — if they were you'd make a mint researching, writing and publishing FOIA articles for free rather than insisting that others do it.
roughly
The original talk for that creed, a classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U
Imnimo
>But while some readers might not subscribe to outlets that give away some of their best journalism for free, it’s just as possible that readers will recognize this sacrifice and reward these outlets with more traffic and subscriptions in the long run.
I just don't see how you can think this given the trends of subscriber counts to various outlets over the last few decades.
freeAgent
Just yesterday I started paying for a Tailscale subscription even though I don’t even fully utilize what they provide for free. I just find it valuable and am glad I have the option and ability to support them. I don’t think most people do things like that, but some do. We’ll definitely see how it works out for Wired (I’m already a subscriber there, too, due to great coverage/work).
rebeccaskinner
I just subscribed. They had already been on my radar as having done some good reporting lately, and this was a good nudge to get a subscription.
Along very similar lines I’m a longtime subscriber to lwn.net even though realistically I tend to catch up there every couple of months and am almost always reading content that is free by that point. I find the service they provide valuable and the subscription fee very reasonable and I’m happy to support it.
dehrmann
This is old, old data, but Condé Nast supposedly does better than you'd expect because they own prestige magazine brands people actually pay for.
0xCMP
To be fair some people genuinely do subscribe for this, but it's best to think of it as a justification to do the "right thing".
xhkkffbf
Exactly.
We should all be grateful to any journalist doing this kind of reporting. And we should reward them with money.
I just don't see people doing more than paying lipservice to this idea.
i80and
I just subscribed as a WIRED Superfan because of this
tempfile
> I just don't see people doing more than paying lipservice to this idea.
Speak for yourself.
karmelapple
I subscribed a few weeks ago, and this has solidified it for at least another year.
KolmogorovComp
> Some may argue that, from a business standpoint, not charging for stories primarily relying on public records automatically means fewer subscriptions and therefore less revenue (…) > while some readers might not subscribe to outlets that give away some of their best journalism for free, *it’s just as possible that readers will recognize this sacrifice* and reward these outlets with more traffic and subscriptions in the long run.
(emphasis is mine)
Not, the outcimes are not as likely. This is the same argument that switching to foss and donation-based model would not result in income-loss compared to traditional business model.
We know from experience it does not financially work for a (very) large majority of products.
I laud Wired’s initiative but I hope they have considered it as a net-loss of income.
jampekka
Most major subscription newspapers in Finland have a model where "important" news articles are free but for feature stories and such a subscription is needed. Having specific articles free would be something similar.
The free news articles are not out of the goodness of the shareholders. Most newspapers (Wired included) run ads, and still get ad revenue from the free stories and with them get to somewhat compete with fully ad funded alternatives.
stereolambda
I wonder how many subscriptions are bought for outlets which have no outside-internet recognition or freely accessible content, where all you can see is a paywall.
If I'm gonna subscribe to your magazine, the main things I want to know is quality of reporting and if I can cancel without hassle (due to tactics sadly employed by some titles). I will not just believe you have good stories if I can't see them. This is not the level of trust we give nowadays. And magazine and newspaper subscriptions are not some pressing need that I can't forgo.
For some of these I could just buy one paper issue to try out (technically even for foreign titles), but otherwise how would I know. And no, with a book I would buy, I know I can expect some level of quality because of the publisher, and I can read what it is about in the backcover. Worst case scenario, I get 250 pages of poor entertainment to read when very bored in a train. It's not the same with getting access to someone's sorry content farm.
jampekka
Wired seems to have a few free stories before the paywall rises, i.e. a "soft paywall".
username4567
I have subscribed to multiple news organizations this year because I think it's important to support the type reporting they are doing right now. I don't give money to every source that is doing great investigative work but there's at least more of my money paying for news.
johnshades
404 media was doing this b4 it was 'wired' :}
MrMcCall
They have been doing really impressive work for some years now.
"There's God's side and the other side." --Katt Williams
xori
Well they aren't in Canada for me yet, but that's probably because we aren't the public that needs to know.
subsubzero
I'm fine with news outlets having paywalls to keep the lights on and provide great journalism. Where I wish things would change is having paywalls on articles years old that are no longer relevant to todays news.
isaacremuant
I just wish that those that suddenly recognize the importance of freedom will remember next time they get their preferred government in power instead of simply pretending "freedumbs" are a partisan issue and defending authoritarianism when it suits them.
I don't have much hope, though. The partisan hypocrisy and inconsistency in red and blue cuts deep.
newsclues
Interesting.
I like the idea of journalism having open data/facts, but am happy if the "story" is behind the paywall.
> But while some readers might not subscribe to outlets that give away some of their best journalism for free, it’s just as possible that readers will recognize this sacrifice and reward these outlets with more traffic and subscriptions in the long run.
In other words we have a wild guess this will be sustainable for news organizations.
Stories like this are always popular on HN but I’m convinced get upvoted because people agree with the idea of more free stuff. I’m skeptical that this will improve the quality of reporting in an already under resourced journalistic environment. Maybe it’s a good idea, but it’s hardly obvious.