海角大神

Blendle, a Dutch news aggregator, is offering readers irritated by news paywalls and web ads a novel solution 鈥� paying a small fee to read an individual article.

罢丑别听脿 la carte news service, in the US, has secured partnerships with several prominent publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Economist, New York Magazine, and Bloomberg Businessweek.

The service has 650,000 users in Germany and the Netherlands. It offers ad-free reading for users that pay between $0.09 and $0.49 per article, at rates set by individual publishers. Users can receive a refund if they don鈥檛 like a story.

New readers are initially offered a $2.50 credit to begin using the app.

The average newspaper story may cost $0.40 while longer magazine stories could cost more, .

It鈥檚 part of a trend known as micropayments, one embraced by publishers who are concerned about how declining ad revenues 鈥� especially due to the growing use of online ad-blockers 鈥� are impacting their ability to produce content.

鈥淭he current model for monetizing journalism is broken,鈥� Alexander Kl枚pping, Blendle鈥檚 co-founder, told . 鈥淵oung people are resistant to subscribing to newspapers and magazines, ad revenue is declining and ad blockers are putting extreme pressure on publishers. In Europe, we鈥檝e proven that there鈥檚 a real need for one account to discover the best journalism.鈥�

But in the age of subscription-based services for streaming movies, TV, and music such as Netflix and Spotify, it seems to be an open question 鈥� will users embrace the model of paying per article?

鈥淧utting micropayments on news is like putting tollbooths on an open ocean,鈥� wrote Marshall W. Van Alstyne, chair of the information systems department at Boston University鈥檚 Questrom School of Business, in examining the trend. 鈥淣ews is not like an iTunes song; it鈥檚 perishable. Today鈥檚 front page is tomorrow鈥檚 fish wrap and we don鈥檛 need to replay it."

Blendle dubs itself the 鈥渋Tunes of journalism,鈥� though the Apple-branded store itself launched a subscription service, Apple Music, in July 2015, growing rapidly to 11 million subscribers in February.

It鈥檚 billing the service as a more customized option, especially for younger readers used to consuming news online.

鈥淵ou still need to register at every newspaper or magazine you want to read while paying monthly fees for every site or for a bundle of articles with all kinds of stuff you don鈥檛 read,鈥� . 鈥淭he editors still make a non-personalized selection for you, and every newspaper has its own website.鈥�

So far, Blendle appears to be most popular with publishers concerned about the impact of declining ad revenue. In 2014, The New York Times Co. and German media conglomerate Axel Springer .

The publishers particularly pointed to the challenges of encouraging a younger, Internet-savvy audience to pay for their content.

As of October 2014, 20 percent of Blendle鈥檚 130,000 users in the Netherlands (the number has since grown) had added funds to their accounts on the app after a free trial of the service, The Wall Street Journal reported.

There are also distinctions between the US and Europe. While many news sources in the US, many European publications have increasingly put much of their content behind a paywall.

Blendle鈥檚 refund option is also controversial, both with publishers concerned about the to customers if they and with people concerned about its impact on the media business.

鈥淯nlike iTunes, for example, which benefits from a legal regime designed to prevent sharing, discussion of events in the real world can鈥檛 be kept from circulation,鈥� , an associate professor at New York University and who has often written about media and the Internet. 鈥淧ublishers have been telling each other for years that eventually people will tire of being able to produce and share amateur content, rather than just consuming professional content, but the users don鈥檛 seem to have gotten that memo."

But for publishers concerned about the impact of declining ad revenue 鈥� the potential to gain even a small group of users through the new app is worth it.

鈥淚f a customer chooses to buy just one article a day from The Wall Street Journal,鈥� Katie Vanneck-Smith, the chief customer officer for Dow Jones, which owns the Journal, , 鈥渢hen I'm happy they're choosing to do that.鈥�