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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Suggestion: stop making it for iOs as well and make the site work properly in any browser.

I really don't understand why news sites bother with dedicated apps. It doesn't sound like anything they're doing couldn't be handled by web design these days, music, video, images, layout etc.

Sidenote: From the writeup it sounds like TNW is struggling more with their tooling than with Android. Anybody know of better alternatives?

Ease of sales. It's easier to sell an app than a subscription through a Web paywall. This is also why more developers sell Mac apps through the App Store than direct now. Psychology, discoverability, and ease of making impulse purchases all comes into play.

I could see that for something like NYT, but TNW doesn't offer subscriptions.

Do people discover web sites through an app store?

I wonder if there's an opportunity there?

Ah, I'm not familiar with the TNW magazine so didn't realize it was free. In that case, it's because of advertising rates.

I run several e-mail newsletters that would work just as well as Web sites but the CPM is 10x higher for e-mail than Web so I use the format. I imagine they can sell the magazine by the page at a healthy rate in a way run of site banners wouldn't work.

Actually somebody else here pointed out that strangely they offer a subscription to additional content via the iOS app -- so I may be wrong. I would think they'd make it prominent on the web page as well to get more eyes on a way towards revenue.

They offer an optional subscription through in-app purchase on iOS.

I imagine they get a lot more support that way than they would if they put it on the web with a 'donate' button, so basically they are putting their effort into the audience who is willing to pay them.

Why would they just give it away rather than going to the market that values their product?

Exactly. When your content is text and photos, there is no reason you can't make it web only, optimized for various resolutions.

The selling point of the magazine is that it's not just the website, it has it's own content.

So put the content on the website and charge for it?

Some people do that, why should we care if they want to try selling content in a different way. I'm not here to run everyone's business for them. They invested in iOS and in Android and one failed. If you don't want to read the obvious lesson here and instead pivot to a tangent about how their whole business model is wrong feel free.

I was not saying that. Rather I was pointing out that having exclusive content in the magazine is not a valid argument against making the site work properly in every browser and discontinuing the iOS version.

The valid argument is that it's generally harder to convince people to pay for web content than it is for content on iOS where this product is already successful, presumably because iOS users are a self-selected group who are more willing to pay for digital content.

There doesn't seem to be any argument for making the site work 'properly' in 'every' browser and discontinuing the iOS version other than a dislike for iOS or iOS users.

Why should they discontinue a successful product?

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