MailOnline's Paywall Mistake
The mega web publisher risks alienating readers with a paid subscription.
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It has been confirmed today that MailOnline will publish up to 15 articles a day behind a paywall as part of a new subscription that will use the Mail+ brand. MailOnline has always been seen as one of the pioneers of online publishing at scale so this feels like something of a shift in direction. Per Press Gazette, the change will come into force in January. I guess they need to find a way to pay Boris Johnson…
In her article, Charlotte Tobitt reported that MailOnline publishes 1500 articles a day, a quite staggering amount. According to the outlet, what goes behind the paywall will apparently “focus on the subjects the Mail is famous for – from agenda-setting investigations to major royal and showbiz exclusives, from expert health, money and travel advice to hard-hitting opinions from an unrivalled line-up of columnists”.
Does this shift show that everyone, even some of the biggest online publishers, needs a subscription service?
First things first, let’s not exaggerate the scale of things. We’re talking about around 1% of the site’s content going behind a paywall. It is hardly a major strategic shift. But it does feel like MailOnline is testing the waters with an eye on future expansion and I’m not convinced it will work. The success of MailOnline is clickbaity celeb stories that keep people browsing the site - the sidebar of shame. Hitting a paywall will stop that. I also wonder if it will cause confusion with the existing Mail+ subscription, which primarily focuses on digitising the print newspaper.
Obviously, I think subscriptions are great in many contexts - you’re about to hit a paywall on this article! But I’m producing a niche product. That is very different from a giant mass-market tabloid website that people have got very used to reading for free over 20 years.
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