Hacker News Reader

Comment by graypegg | Hacker News Reader

I’m sure it’s been done before, but I wouldn’t mind free synopsis, pay small per-article fee for full version.

The tease paragraphs used on every news site always feel “mean” to me in some way. The text fades out, or it cuts off mid-sentence.

If there was a bespoke intro+conclusion that actually communicated something valuable, I would reach for the Apple Pay button to drop 3$ for the added context and analysis.

Could even have a little marker in the full article, a little past the full fat intro: “Single Article subscribers should start reading here”

There’s no easy solutions though, I’m not going to pretend that works, even if I would like that.

View on HN

These days you mostly see "above the fold" used to refer to website content, but it originated from the way newspapers would cram their top headlines into the upper half of the front page, so it would be visible at a glance in a newspaper machine or on a newsstand. If the headlines (or the local top stories in the "ears" of the front page) grabbed you, you dropped your nickel/dime/quarter and got the paper.

If you can feel confident based on headlines that yes, there's at least a few things in today's NYT that will interest you, it seems like paying $1 to get a PDF or whatever makes sense.

Oh! I had no idea that was the etymology. Learned something today. Thanks!

I think digital needs to fight a little harder than just headlines and above-the-fold style intros. I think including a short conclusion is valuable. Also valuable to write this free micro-article separately, with the intention of being a complete thought. It means people could post something here or other social media, and the unpaid state would actually communicate something.

That would make me feel better about paying, since it doesn’t feel like I’m being fished. The faded out text and incomplete sentences do make me feel that.

I hate the faded out text too, but I think it's hard to strike a balance where your conclusion is complete enough to tell the reader what the story is about, without also just giving away all the important information, while also not just being clickbait.

Consider the inverted pyramid theory, which says that your news story should begin with the absolute most essential info (who what where when why and how) in basically the first paragraph. This allows readers to skim and still get the essentials; it also makes it easy for editors to trim stories as necessary. Your conclusion/summary is that first paragraph -- and for a lot of people, that's all they need to read.

Entomology is the study of insects. You mean etymology. :)

Caught it within the edit grace period, thanks!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com