A no-brainer gets rejected. This is likely my last gig, and I want to do what I love doing. But the advertising-based model is teetering.
Many readers have suggested to me that they would be willing to pay a reasonable annual subscription fee, and that I should put the content or some of the content behind a paywall. The reasons most often given for it fall broadly into two categories, with the first being far more common:
- “I’m tired of the ads, they’re distracting, and I would rather pay a little every year to get rid of the ads.”
- “Your stuff is too good to just give away. You should charge for it even if it limits readers to those who are seriously interested.”
I have been thinking about it for years. Ultimately, the way I see it, it comes down to a choice:
- An equation expressed in dollars where I come out ahead dollar-wise.
- My larger goals in life.
The equation expressed in dollars goes like this:
Once I put WOLF STREET behind a paywall, no matter how intensely I try to persuade my readers to come along with me and pay for WOLF STREET, I will lose the vast majority of my readers. Only a small percentage would make the hop.
So here is the sample math: If WOLF STREET costs $50 a year, and 10,000 readers (a small percentage of my current reader numbers) make the transition, it would amount to $500,000 a year in revenues. That is quite a bit more than I make off my silly, intrusive, and hated ads. So from that perspective, this would be a no-brainer.
But there are several problems with this equation, if it even works. For one, my readership would be gutted. And these readers are who this site lives for.
Then there is “churn.” I would lose paying subscribers all the time, and just to stay even, I’d have to market and advertise the site to get new readers to replace the once who left. And if I start marketing the dickens out of the site, pay for ads on other sites, hire a marketing team, and so on, I might get this to 20,000 readers. And $1 million in annual revenues. Or maybe not.
But here is the thing: I would have to totally change my business model and what I do for a living.
My larger goals in life.
Right now, my business model is this: Spend much of my time researching, mulling over, and diving deep into data and analyzing what I find, and then writing it all down to where it makes sense even to me, and building charts that even I can understand at one glance. And I spend a lot of time communicating with readers in the comment sections – all of which I really enjoy.
And importantly, WOLF STREET is widely read, and I’m having an impact on the debate.
In short, my business model boils down to this: I spend no time on marketing the site. I focus on creating the best articles I know how to create and hope that word gets around. Hope is not a strategy, but so far it has worked, thanks to my readers. And advertising revenue came with it.
Under a subscription model, I would constantly be trying to market a newsletter because subscribers unsubscribe or don’t renew, and I’d have to labor to fill those spots, and then I’d have to labor to get more subscribers in order to grow, and I’d have to bombard inboxes with promo emails that are trying to get people to subscribe to my can’t-live-without newsletter hidden behind a paywall.
And this time spent on marketing and selling a newsletter would have to be subtracted from the time I spend researching, analyzing, stewing over, and writing about financial, economic, and business topics, and communicating with my readers.
Look, I’m not the youngest guy anymore.
This is likely my last gig. I want to keep doing it until my brain freezes over. I feel young, and I’m fit and healthy — knock on wood — so I hope I will have many more years doing what I love doing. And what you see in front of you is what I love doing.
However, at this stage in my life, I really don’t want to spend my time doing what I don’t like doing. I have done enough of that in my younger years. I’ve paid my dues, as they say. I want to enjoy the rest of my life: And hawking subscriptions just doesn’t fit into it.
When I started the predecessor site in the summer of 2011, with this ghastly name…
…I had zero readers. When the first reader somehow found the site, I was immensely excited. I hollered at my baffled wife: “I have a reader!” Then after a while, I had 100 readers a day, then 1,000, wow! I started putting ads on my site. And they started making a few bucks a day – on a good day, enough to buy a nerve-soothing craft brew at a watering hole. And my still baffled wife could never quite figure out why I was working so hard for so little.
It’s called sweat equity. In the summer of 2014, I shed the ghastly name and switched to WOLF STREET, and things have been rocking and rolling since. Now the site is making pretty good money — “beer money,” I’ve come to call it, because I love a good IPA.
So I could probably increase my beer money by a big jump – maybe by multiples – if I switched to a subscription model. I’d have to hire a marketing team. I’d have to pay for advertising on other sites to lure people to a landing page that scares them into subscribing to WOLF STREET so they can find out how they can survive the coming whatever….
No thanks.
Also, some readers’ finances are stretched, and they don’t spend money on subscriptions. With a paywall, I would systematically exclude them. Many other readers just don’t want to spend money on subscriptions. And hiding a site behind a paywall can kill search traffic. These are people who may not know the site but are looking for something to which a WOLF STREET article provides an answer. There is a democratic beauty to advertising-supported publishing: Everyone gets to read it.
But there is a democratic beauty to advertising-supported publishing only if it can function, which is less and less clear.
The advertising supported model is under heavy attack. There just isn’t enough money in it for online publishers. Advertisers (such as Ford or Macy’s) spend a fortune, and publishers get peanuts.
The middlemen siphon most of it out — thick layers of middlemen: The ad agency hired by the advertiser, the “ad tech” companies that have managed to insert themselves layer by layer, Google that runs a big part of the show, other ad exchanges, etc., and then my own ad agencies. And the portion that the middle is siphoning out is getting bigger and bigger.
For many publishers, this just isn’t working out. Though their sites are big and have lots of readers, they aren’t generating enough revenues to fund operations. Layoffs have been ricocheting through the publishers for years, now even pure online publishers. Just so far this year, the layoff reports include:
- Vice to shed 10% to 15% of its people.
- Buzzfeed to slash 220 additional people after laying off its entire podcast team last year.
- McClatchy Company (Miami Herald, Kansas City Star, etc.) offered buyouts to 450 employees.
- Yahoo, AOL, and The Huffington Post got hit by layoffs, as owner Verizon announced that it is planning to axe 7% of its people at its media companies. This series of layoffs is on top of the buyout program announced last December with which Verizon is trying to shed 10,400 employees by mid-year.
- Gannett, the giant that owns over 100 news sites, plans to lay off as many as 400 journalists across its properties, after a round of voluntary buyouts late last year.
- Condé Nast has trimmed staff at various sites this year, including Wired, Glamour, and GQ magazine.
- The Dallas Morning News cut 43 jobs, half of them in the newsroom.
And it’s just February 18!
So I don’t know for how long the advertising-supported model will continue to provide me with beer money. There may be a day when this model no longer functions for a small publisher like me — when the giants such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook don’t accidentally leave enough crumbs behind for me to feed on.
But that day is not yet in sight. For now, my site is growing, my readership is growing, my beer money is still growing, I’m having a blast doing this, and I intend to keep doing it until my brain freezes over.
Since my podcast team — which consists of me, myself, and I — has not been laid off, here’s my latest podcast: What’s Causing the Subprime Auto Loan Fiasco? Listen to... THE WOLF STREET REPORT
Enjoy reading WOLF STREET and want to support it? You can donate. I appreciate it immensely. Click on the mug to find out how:
Wolf,
I have been reading your amazing work since you cited something my former colleague put together. The quality of your work is as high as a few other subscription-based opinion/analysis sites that I follow. Appreciate that you are thinking about your impact as well as your ability to maximize revenue. Keep up the great work.
-first time poster; long time reader
That is quality for you, at many other sites the commentary tends towards the reverse of that.
My bookmark still said testosterone pit until recently and I’ve read this site since the beginning. I recommend it often. The research is high quality, timely, and of considerable value.
The viability issue here seemes to be framed as an all or nothing, either-or proposition regarding ads vs paywall but there is definitely some middle ground. I’ve noticed some new ways people are monetizing media.
Some podcasts have first hour free and charge for the second hour by subscription. Would a variation on this be possible where special reports are offered for a one time micro sized payment of $2-7, maybe with a yearly subscription for $15-20? They could be summarized and outlined for free with the more gritty details and charts for sale. I would rather sell a special report than beg people to hit my tip jar.
Here is a company that sells cannabis industry data in a similar manner.
https://www.cannabisbenchmarks.com/
Their free weekly reports and summaries are still useful and interesting even without buying special reports, which are very expensive, probably because statistics were hard to come by in the beginning of the industry and there were a small number of customers.
I could be wrong but I have a feeling that if it was a very small charge applied to the vastly larger potential audience you have that it would pay off handsomely.
the most clear headed analysis out there
Wolf, Your observations and summaries are excellent. Please keep it going!
I regularly visit about 4 or 5 websites on stock market news and activities daily. They all have ads but I simply ignore them as every other type of website also has ads. I do not mind most of the ads except those pop-up ads that block the whole screen and are hard to close.
If your current model is working for you, I say keep it.
Brad
Wolf,
An alternative to the paywall is to make the Donation button more prominent. Those among your loyal readership who can, will subsidize this amazing site.
Thank you so much for sharing your immense intellect with us. Please extend my gratitude to DQ and all the other contributors.
Wolf,
Agree with Old dog on all those points. Thanks for all you think about and share.
Though public radio’s model is different, you get one of those license plate frames that say “kpbw Member since blah blah” or whatever once you donate some amount. I think for the folks that do it it’s a way to virtue signal, which is fine if that’s your thing.
Perhaps for a yearly donation of $x one could get a license plate frame that says “Wolfpack member since 2YYY”?
Thanks again.
Don’t forget the obligatory tote bag!!
I agree, bigger donation button, or an occasional ‘please donate’ pop up or something.
I don’t think I could stretch to paying, but I’d happily donate as I do for many web things I get value from… along with the adverts which I’m happy to have there to enjoy the content for free.
Ah, found the button in a menu, and donated.
It could definitely be more prominent on the mobile site.
Keep up the great work!
We love you as you are, Wolf.
As for ad clutter, I encourage any dissatisfied readers to buy a proper computer. Any Linnux computer delivers innernet with NO ADS.
Dear Commenters and Readers,
I post this up here so people can actually see it… there are nearly 200 comments. They’re spread over two pages. To get to the newer half, go to the bottom of this page and click on “newer comments.”
If you cannot find your comment on this page, it’s on the second page. At this pace, pretty soon, there may be a third page.
THANK YOU EVERYONE for the many, many great and wonderful comments. Warmed my heart.
Thank you also for the flood of donations. I have not looked at them in detail yet, but the number of donations looks like three or four months’ worth of donations, or more, in terms of the sheer number. That was totally unexpected. THANK YOU!
I apologize for being late releasing comments that got stuck. There were many comments from “long-time readers, first-time commenters.” All first-time comments automatically go into the approval cue where they wait for me to deal with them. Alas, we went hiking and then to dinner (being a holiday in the US), so I was gone for about 8 hours. When I came back, there were 80 or so comments waiting to be released, most of them from first-time commenters. If yours is one of them, sorry for the delay! And thank you for being patient. They’ve now all been released.
Many readers have made great and thoughtful suggestions, including making an ad-free version available for a fee (same content but no ads). This is a good idea, and I will try to get something going, but it poses some complexities.
One of the complexities is that there can only be one comment section that everyone can read, and where all commenters post their comments. So subscribers of the ad-free version (likely an email that you can read in your inbox so you don’t have to log into anything) would have to go to the ad-supported site to read and post comments. This could be done via a convenient link at the bottom of the article that takes you straight to the beginning of the comments… but there would still be ads.
I cannot imagine having two separate comment sections, one for paying subscribers, and one for everyone else. That just wouldn’t work.
Another suggestion that I saw several times was creating and selling WOLF STREET coffee mugs, beer mugs, and hats. I’d love to have some myself. So I will give this some thought. But this wouldn’t be anything to make money. It would be like my books, just something fun… and it might work as a little promo when you park your WOLF STREET beer mug on your desk in your office. Definitely beer for thought.
Many commenters have asked about a “tip jar” or similar. This site has a how-to-donate button. If you’re reading this site on mobile, the “how-to-donate” button is hard to find (click on the hamburger menu). If you’re on a PC, the button is in the menu bar and easy to see. This is the link: https://wolfstreet.com/how-to-donate-to-wolf-street/
And a big thanks to all of you who have white-listed this site in your ad blocker or deactivated ad blocking for this site.
Thanks again everyone… and don’t forget there are two pages of comments now, and soon, the comments will bleed over to the third page.
Would you consider running “no middleman” ads, directly funded by those who want to put a message on your site? Would take work, but might earn more revenue per ad-space on the pages…
P.S. I’m in the school that values the carefully curated commentary, which would suffer badly under a subscription model.
Yes, I do that occasionally. And I love doing it. I have some established relationships. And occasionally, something new comes along. It’s cheaper for the clients than paying all the middlemen, and they know what they’re getting, and it’s a better deal for me too.
But I don’t do enough of it. This takes a lot of time… trying to find clients, working with clients directly, billing, verifying the traffic, etc. I’m a low-tech outfit. None of this is automated.
Sweet! I hope you find ways to streamline the direct-ad approach and make it worthwhile. I wonder whether an occasional periodic posting / reminder, to advertise your willingness to handle custom ads, might be fruitful?
Also, it seems like many regular readers focus on the articles and have no idea that there’s even a menu bar, much less a way to donate. Seems good to have an occasional posting like this one to remind readers how to donate. That seems to work for NakedCapitalism, for instance, as well as public radio and, say, many local charity drives.
P.S. Staying public provides one additional public benefit – it inspires others with similar interests to contribute what they can, and maybe start their own semi-retirement gigs down the road!
Wolf, even after you described where your ‘Donate’ link is, I still missed it in the menu bar. As a front end developer (i.e. I build websites for a living). You MUST do something more prominent. Put the standard Orange PayPal donate button right on the home page, not buried behind a menu item. I’m sure you’ll get way more people to click on it! Love your content, look forward to it every week. Thanks for doing this for the rest of us!!
Yep, what @Art said. Up top, to the right, above the email subscription box, where everyone can see it.
–and i’m your art girl if you need it for the stone soup feast.
(smile)
x
Wolf, I love the site, been reading for years and recommending it.
Subscription works very well for B2B verticals, which are doing very well indeed, in contrast to the rest of the media, but you are a B2C site.
Nonetheless, there is nothing to stop[you opening a subscription section for professionals and specialists while keeping the B2C section free – think of how Politico does it.
Then, also, instead of advertisers giving you $1 CPM, you would be getting $100 per and running out of inventory space.
Great article just published here you should read:
https://medium.com/@jryedinak/why-2019-is-the-year-of-vertical-media-628365fe3b42
what if those of us who wish, and I am one, sent in a super modest contribution, say $10 or even wildly up to $20. Would that change things. I have no idea of how many of us read your daily blog, but I do, with eager anticipation, and usually with serious reward. Glad to pony up that kind of money, as I do for a few others. steve
steve,
Yes, everything makes a difference. And more importantly, it shows that what I do matters to people. It’s a form of feedback. There is an emotional quality to it for me. It’s very uplifting.
Hello Wolf,
I am a large consumer of financial news and wade through many different blogs, subscriptions and news sites. Your site is one of my favorites.
You are not the only site that runs on donations and ads that I visit. After you posted this article I started thinking how nice if all these sites I visit offered another option next to donate where we could subscribe to the ads free version of your posts.
And better yet the ads-free site offered the capability to sign up (donate) for multiple authors. A one-stop shop for us consumers doing battle with ads and pop-ups.
I pay for ads-free email and I would pay for this concept especially if I could visit several of my favorite reads in one place.
I’m toying around with some off-the-shelf software that would allow people to donate to individual authors and would automatically load your articles from your present site when you post them.
It meets the keep-it-simple concept.
I think it is important for you to keep your present ads based site. As you said, it allows you to reach more people. Not everyone would make the jump to ads free, but my guess is many would and I have to think the revenue would be better than what I hear advertisers pay.
I run my own paid subscription site already and have a ads free blog. This idea would be a separate challenge I would be interested in because it fits into some of what I am already doing.
As for the one comment section, I am sure that could be worked through. I think an ad-free option is worth giving a try. If you are interested in brainstorming, let me know.
Regardless, thank you for your website and research!
I don’t mind ads one bit. If it keeps the content free I’m all for it. It’s a minor inconvienence for all that I’m learning from this site. Not everyone has money to pay. Thanks for all your work Wolf, it is appreaciated.
I don’t activate AdBlock on this site, and I can’t recall the last time I even noticed an ad here. Maybe it’s because I’ve been ‘doing’ the Internet for over 30 years, and long ago trained my brain to not register advertising (esp. display ads). I think I’ve actually clicked on less than a half-dozen display ads in all that time, though I spend a lot of time on the ‘net, and do almost all my shopping on it.
Now, if we could just get rid of the ‘surveys’ I’m asked to fill out every time I buy a toothbrush …
I enjoy the content and interactive banter and comments that readers provide. Keep up the good work and I will continue to read and support your work.
Thanks again.
Kudos to you. The Real Deal!
One thing I have found lately Wolf. Sites like yours which are honest and no bs are the ones that continue to thrive and grow. . Always factual and to the point. Any other sites which have the Made up facts and “fake news” are the ones that are dying off and laying off. Keep up what you are doing. We depend on honesty which is had to find anymore
Agree 100%
I’ll be sure and click on a bunch of ads with 0 intention or interest in the company/product. After all, you at least deserve more beer.
I guess I should click on more ads, especially the more off-the-wall ones. I find the ads entertaining more than annoying.
A paywall would mean I stop coming here. But then that may be a desirable outcome, as I doubt the readers here want to hear from someone who’s under 65 and doesn’t have a healthy stock portfolio.
oh no, brother. i missed you when you were gone. you’re kin. i even asked James if he’d been on that horn site and heard from you (he hadn’t been on the site or heard from you).
x
Amazing! Not only did Wolf print my comment but … I’m missed by someone?
It’s hard to be a busker when there’s frost on the ground. And, I feel that trumpet may be a dead-end for me. Imagine doing a performance that involves tossing a medicine ball for a couple of hours. That begins to describe the amount of pressure needed to play trumpet above the musical staff at all.
I have no idea who this “James” person is, but he sounds nice.
I’ve realized that if I can hold out through another 8 years of the low pay that goes hand in glove with electronics, and just survive, I can retire at age 65 and go back where I grew up and where it’s at least a third cheaper than here to live, if not more like half as expensive to live. And if I’m to be homeless, at least the winters won’t kill me. We lose a dozen or so each winter, here.
But lately, well, I’ve been having more trouble getting paid than in the last several years, so if things fall apart surprisingly fast, as they did in the last crash, I may skedaddle sooner than planned, as I’d rather be homeless there than here.
I am a reader who’s finances are stretched and therefore can’t spend money on subscriptions but shamefully gave you a paltry £20 in gratitude for your educating me. It’s a very tiny amount, but only one other site has got me to so appreciate what they do for me to dip into my shallow and almost empty pockets and give.
Please, when you buy your next IPA, know that I, budaatum, appreciate what you freely give.
I’m in buda’s boat! Not much “jingle” in my pocket.
I really enjoy this site you have created Wolf. To ‘lock’ it away behind a paywall would spell the end of my visits. So please don’t.
I especially like this comment section and how you police the comments. My fellow commenter’s help by self policing odious comments, which I have witnessed many times. It’s this action, along with the high quality of content provided by well informed reader’s, that keeps me coming back.
Thank you all, and especially you Wolf, for your thoughtfulness.
Hello
Long time lurker; first time poster.
I thank you for your efforts. The site has been a daily source of insight.
You have navigated between the naive cheerleading of sites such as the WSJ and the paranoia of Zero Hedge, et al.
Consider your assets, you have a pretty good reader base, one that feeds on itself. I was on Garynorth.com for a while, a subscription site, he caters to Christian business people, and he provides plenty of nuts and bolts stuff. The problem is often where a blog develops a narrow demographic, or a culture sets in, and you go even slightly off message, and you get trolled. Dailykos and Zerohedge, by example, and while I like Mish I have no connection with his readers. When Cramer set up thestreet.com he had some great writers, and I made money off that website subscription, and learned a great deal. If you go behind a paywall you will probably have to get some other writers, and that’s a tough choice to make. Good luck either way.
As a middle-aged man, I’ve used the internet from its birth & watched its evolution over time.
I’ve also noticed how ads have absolutely ruined the internet .
I’m not talking about a moderate amount of ads. It’s rare people voluntarily do things in moderation when pleasure / profit is concerned, and money-making ads are no exception.
I’m sure I speak for most people when I say no one begrudges you a profit. Indeed, we’re happy to see it: you’ve earned it.
But you miss the point that the ads are intrusive, overwhelming & out of control.
(Coming from an auto sales background you should be especially aware of the problem of ad-blitzing the customers to death, whereby they just turn off the medium.)
Newspaper, Radio, TV, and now the Internet. All ruined by incessant ads.
You have good insightful articles but there comes a point when it’s too much of a hassle to read them when drowned by ads.
I can fully understand & agree that the time spent pursuing paid customers would greatly diminish the content but also a little time spent pruning ads would go a long ways in keeping / attracting readers.
aqius
Both my iPad (safari browser) and my PC (firefox) have a reader mode that keeps only the text of the story and removes everything else, including ads. I use it constantly. If ads bug you see if your device has that symbol.
Wolf-perhaps a voluntary contribution option? I’d pay for this great content but i like it better when it’s a request and not a requirement. Then those who appreciate it can reward you.
A voluntary contribution system is not a bad idea.
First time comment from a 6-month reader of your blog. I would be willing to voluntarily contribute $10 per quarter. Is there a way to do this?
if there is a consumer recession ad revenues will crater
If you check the top banner of the site, there is a link on how to donate. https://wolfstreet.com/how-to-donate-to-wolf-street/
I occasionally send $50 to show my appreciation for the high level of content as well as the high level of comments, which Wolf enforces. In return Wolf sends me an email to express his appreciation. As for paywall, I wonder how that’s working out for David Stockton, who I used to read before he put up his payway.
Ditto here curiouscat on both the $50 donation and David Stockman comment.
And Wolf you are a greatly respected guy with your extraordinary perspective on site funding and, of course, economics.
Thanks for the link. I just made use of it.
Stockton was one of my favored reads before he began demanding subscriptions….now I read his articles posted occasionally on other blogs but never log into his subscription site. Wonder the percent to which his viewership has plummeted. Contributing is voluntary; subscribing mandatory. Myself and hoards of other thinking homo sapiens detest being told what we must do.
I still have a subscription on Stockton’s site. He’s provided some good insight over time. But there is a lot of rehashing of the same concepts and it lacks freshness at times. At some point, I’ll drop that subscription. I have made a couple of donations here and will continue to support this model. I have no problem skimming right over the ads.
Thanks Wolf. Love your articles and am a regular reader of your blog.
The ads are annoying but not as bad as the typical click bait sites. In this more mature stage of the internet, finding content people are desperate to make money off of versus those whole love putting it out there could not be more apparent. I’m sure you know what category you all into and I hope it doesn’t change. Thanks for keeping it in front of a paywall!
Hi Wolf, I find myself checking your site every day. Love it. I think I came to you recommended by the only site I pay for GaryNorth.com, $10/month.
Live long and prosper, Wolf
I’d definitely pay $50/year.
Count me in for £50 p.a.
Having worked in print media: online ads never came close to replacing lost print revenue. Print ads that sold for tens or hundreds of thousands were replaced with peanuts. It’s a losers game. I suspect that what is seen as a technology story is also an economic story. Readers are broke and would rather not pay for content even if it’s crap. (Not to imply that is true here!) I would also blame (you guessed it): the Fed. With venture capital being thrown at the biz feeds and vices of this world legacy media faces competetion from all manner of non-economic business plans. Same is true with Netflix, Amazon etc. No one is making money. Thanks Ben and Janet!
Here’s a Wolf Street classic concerning what the CEO of restoration hardware had to say about online ad spending being a waste of money.
https://wolfstreet.com/2017/09/11/most-online-ad-spending-wasted-ceo-restoration-hardware/
Re “No one is making money” and “Readers are broke and would rather not pay for content even if it’s crap.”
Wrong on both counts. On the first – Google is minting money off online ads! Just not their content providers, so to speak. One has an effective near-monopoly and the others … don’t.
On the second – readers are sick of being fed crap funded by corporate ad spend. Plenty are paying for content, just not from the previous print providers who remain beholden to those advertisers and can’t find a business model other than feeding people their agenda-driven crap.
Meanwhile, there are armies worth of semi-retired amateur journalists, people like Wolf, educated by life experience and with diverse perspectives, whose analysis runs rings around the agenda-driven mass media. And who don’t require corporate paychecks to keep writing.
P.S. The subscription-based legacy media are not doing themselves any favors by running abusive “roach motel” subscription gimmicks where it takes subscribers hours of effort to unsubscribe. As one of many examples, I will never again pay to read the NY Times after the crap they have pulled on me and many of their other former readers.
Wolf,
Good discussion here. A random visitor and former occasional poster here….
@Chris, I’m in the print media biz and also digital magazine biz. A friend with decades in print mags told me this month that their digital magazine beat the printed glossy mag in revenue for the first time in 20 years. A real sign of change in the legacy print world.
While I’m involved in a regional food magazine, there’s no revenue growth in it due to rising print costs. So I’m heading into digital despite not being a Get X, Y or millennial. Print is too limiting and expensive. While I have decades of experience, it’s translating easily. Digital work gets simpler all the time. Like Wolf, I’m keeping the publishing work easy and, yes, we’ll sell ads. I use an Ad Blocker myself only due to Pop ups.
Too bad they are so aggressive.
Keep at it, Wolf, Thank you!
Honest reporting is rare theese days.
Appreciate and keep reading your genuine articles until my brain freezes.
Good job Wolf!
Thank you Wolf, we love and appreciate you!
You should create a Patron. Could be a good way for people like myself who would be willing to throw a couple $ your way to do so
Check the banner at the top of the site
https://wolfstreet.com/how-to-donate-to-wolf-street/
You’re absolutely right! Perhaps the greatest impact is on your brain. To build new paid subscribers, you would have to divide your thoughts into saying a little (free) and a lot (paid). I’ll suffer the ads.
Thank you for putting yourself out there. I really appreciate your work.
I would hate to lose your site so whatever you must do then do it. I do donate although it’s not much. I’m, and I suspect countless others, are expert at tuning out ads so that hasn’t been a problem.. . The only complaint I have, and it’s a totally minor one, is I don’t hear well so the podcasts are never opened. I know I’m probably missing something that I wanted to learn but is there anyway a printed transcript could be added? Even just a truncated version? It’s a rare week that I don’t cut and paste one of your articles..
Ads don’t interfere with my reading on my iPad. WolfStreet is my first read in the morning. Please keep the site free. One of the best blog I have found in years.
Dear Wolf,
please keep up your awesome posts!
I agree with your analysis completely!
I dont mind the ads at all… i have learnt to read effortlessly around them. Your posts are a daily “must read” for me, along with the newyorktimes! Btw, have you considered becoming a 501c non-profit? You can then attract tax sheltered grants while paying yourself a salary. Just a thought since you are rendering such a valuable public service.
Thank you!
Ven
If Wolf ever loses his mind he might consider selling merchandise, such as t-shirts, pop sockets, coasters, stickers, bibs, rings, flasks etc.
It’s not even that difficult companies like tee spring and cafe express handle everything from production to shipping, you just need a logo.
With his macroeconomics knowledge, intellectual curiosity and IHS Markit Data, he likely will never need to sell any merchandise or t-shirts! LOL
He has top institution’s trader mental tools along with deep knowledge, I think he’s doing more then fine, and would be surprised if he wasn’t a millionaire
@Wolf, you can for sure charge institutions for your many Thesis on different subjects no doubt, why do it for free ?
Lemko, he mentions in the article how he’s not as young as he used to be, I doubt he wants such a drastic career change, besides he’s even been on RT before.
He’s undoubtedly a millionaire, but selling merchandise could pad his income and allow his viewers to support him in a more direct way.
I was about to mention this.
WOLFSTREET COFFEE MUGS !
WOLFSTREET BEER STEINS
WOLFSTREET KEYCHAINS
WOLFSTREET PENS (retro-cool)
WOLFSTREET BOXER SHORTS (for the true die-hard)
Um. The boxers might do better with the former website name Testosterone pit. Might buy a pair for hubs….:)
That being said. I found wolfstreet through a commenter link on zerohedge. Stopped reading that dystopian testosterone pit a couple years back as the info was increasingly
Useless. I reco this one all the time
To anyone who cares to listen
I need a Wolf street mug and key chain if you’re seeing this Wolf make it happen!
Hey Wolf,
I perfectly understand your mood and your choice of the “advertising” model.
I believe your analysis is correct.
The work you do is very important and much appreciated. I would not want it to be limited to a small number of paying readers.
Keep going!
Just one little tip.
Highlight the “Donate” button. Top right.
In addition to advertising revenue, whoever wants or can do it will make a spontaneous donation.
The worst thing about pay walled subscription would be that the material you produce would slowly but surely divert towards satisfying the customer base, or what you imagine that base to be. That is to say the product would no longer be your own free thought but aimed at a class of people, a small class of people. That truly would be a shame, as we witness this in terms of quality across the msm. Once that profile is witnessed, it provides a point of leverage, a weakness, to the view of those who would try to use your base. To top it off, you would lose the commentary and feedback of those who choose to hold a different view, of those willing to actually provide hard debate – either they would not subscribe to what were then seen as contained views, or your answers would be expected a certain way at point of desubscription, or they would simply desubscribe to be “right” without recourse. Many would not pay just out of ethic – you maybe do not realise just how sensible readers are to even minor changes in presentation, they have a subtle sense of what they are taking part in.
So stay your own man is all I am able to say, few people are capable of that freedom nowadays, and it cannot be bought – contrary to all we are sold.
The only suggestions I could make would be to offer an add free choice, as a small one off payment per year . I don’t know how that would work, and I imagine there are barriers to that also of imposed, practical, and technical nature. At the least it would give people “a reason” to contribute, often they need one after the fact of something being already free to justify the payment to themselves lol.
I agree – two kinds of subscription: One paid allowing add blocking and one free with ad reception mandatory.
As long as no obligatory login to access site as this is also a bigger barrier to readership than it seems. I think it is the technicalities that might be awkward, add-free would mean login for people to reset cookies if they clear the browser cache for example. To be honest I really don’t know what is available as solution along those lines , it is very common on phone applications though. Maybe we will get Wolf Street on play store one day, or a dedicated browser platform even that integrates that option smoothly across various websites offering add free /adds . The adds on WS don’t bother, on some sites they make reading an article impossible almost. Add-blockers work also but that is not really the compromise we are talking about . Just thinking out loud.
I totally appreciate your newsletter and the ads are just fine with me and even interesting.
You hit the nail on the head with writing about paid subscriptions vs free ad backed newsletters.
I have had several paid newsletter/blogs and have dropped all over the years due to the hype, constant hawking or scare tactics they provide to induce a life time membership, etc. etc. One well know blog produces a stock portfolio where virtually 95% of the portfolio is negative to date; so there is zero benefit. Another one suggested in 2015 that Japan and the European Union would collapse in that order shortly- well, so much for that prediction.
If you enjoy what you have been doing and I enjoy what you do, try to keep going on. I retired years ago and hated it just over the weekend; so started a new business. Fun, productive and beneficial.
Thanks for an understanding wife and thanks for great commentaries.
Thank you for staying free. I truly love reading articles on your sight, as I have stated earlier. Especially when the subject is cars, retirement, and the economy. It is the first “click” every morning with my fresh cup of coffee.
I am 77 now. I feel young. I feel healthy. I DO have to count my pennies. If you went to a subscription based sight I would have to drop out.
I love that you have a “huge” and affectionate audience. Everything you write is worth it.
And I have also come to enjoying your voice every Sunday. Although I got your message this week on Monday AM.
Be safe and in good health.
Apologize. Sp site, not sight
I have been following your site daily for quite a few years and, have enjoyed the content and discussions immensely! This is one of the few sites that I have come across where, 1. A discussion is allowed to occur and, 2. The discussions remain relevant and civil. You also do a wonderful job of adding little bits of corrective material to keep the discussions moving smoothly. Would I pay for this site? Probably. That said, if this site was ‘pay to play’, I think something would be lost in the discussions that “so freely occurs. I have often gained as much from the insights of your readership as I have from the articles themselves. The only thing that makes me question you a bit, is your ability to enjoy an IPA!
I appreciate your hard work, insights and good humor. This is what works for me. I have an ad blocker on and don’t see your ads. I do however strive to make a small donation sometimes.
“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.”
Maya Angelou
Keep being splendid, Wolf.
That’s my practice too, TopNotch potato. Block the ads and donate 25 bucks, now and then.
And I know the feeling of loving publishing – I do it too – for free – on another blog. I’m 87 1/2 tears old and know, like Wolf, I won’t be doing anything else.
Best wishes to Wolf and all the disciples.
P.S. Hope Wolf doesn’t hide any more columns if they are being viewed with an ad blocker on. I have rural wireless internet service and the ads alone, if I let them run, would use up my data limit pretty soon.
I really appreciate your site. The analysis is always spot on, and I read every post. Thank you so much for making it available. I never thought to donate for all your time and effort, but I will now. Thanks for years os useful insights!
I’m sure you have considered this – but what about speaking engagements or workshops as a source of income?
Maybe you can supplement your income some. But, it would take time, so maybe not worth it.
Poor Wolf appeared on Max Kreiser’s show on RT once.
Nearly got harangued out the door …
I saw the Max Keiser show with Wolf.
I think Max’s continuing obsession with Bitcoin undermines a lot of his undoubtedly correct insights.
I’d definitely put Wolfstreet just ahead of Max and Stacey because it’s a bit more objective and less focused on gold and Crypto.
Mind you both Max and Wolf would be great dinner guests.
Wolf, Max and Yanis Varoufakis
What a dream group of dinner guests !
@HMG,
I used to follow Max, before Stacey. He got the MaxCoin going….then it disappeared. He’s fun, wonderfully dramatic but over-focused on the crypto currencies. I agree with you that it’s a limit. I stopped listening since I don’t invest in crypto. Still listen sometimes.
Ads are good revenue. I think it will be easier to get them as the print world collapses…which it is.
I don’t like subscriptions much. Did that once for a GoldenJackass Jim Willie. Learned a lot in one year then left.
How is it that grown adults presumably accustomed to the web are so annoyed by the ads? I couldn’t even tell you what is being advertised most of the time. It just gets tuned out.
First time poster here as well.
Thanks for all your words.
I can understand your reasoning.
There seems to be a third option.
Have you considered the patreon way of financing your work?
Add a donate button on your site, give people a way to give you a one-time payment or a few bucks a month.
Maybe give the paying guys an extra once a while.
If you get enough money that way, reduce the adverts .
This seems like a win-win for all.
Cheers from Germany o/
I truly appreciate the analysis that you and your contributors bring to this site, and I hope it does not get hidden behind a paywall. It’s OK to explicitly ask your readers to make a one-time or recurring donation. Not with your own pop-up ad–please–but at the end of the articles.
I teach philosophy online, independently. I used to ask for a set tuition, which about one-third of my students could not afford. So I would negotiate a lower tuition with them individually. Being very low income myself, I know how it is.
But I wanted to be teaching, not keeping accounts. Two years ago I decided to abandon the fixed tuition model and just ask for donations, whatever feels right for the student to give, instead. I earn just as much now (still, not very much) and it is easier all the way around. When I receive money from someone, I see it as a sign of their valuing my work.
Yours is the only financial website I visit on a daily basis.
Yep!
I enjoy your newsletter and never had a problem with the ads, Wolf. How about having a link to a “tip jar” on your site?
If you’re reading this site on mobile, the “how to donate” button is hard to find (click on the hamburger menu). If you’re on a PC, the button is in the menu bar and easy to see.
https://wolfstreet.com/how-to-donate-to-wolf-street/
You could do like the NYT; you subscribe, then they still blast you with ads (and bitch when you activate an adblocker).
Wolf: Why not simply do a fundraiser for 2-3 weeks, once a year, and let people give you whatever amount they see fit during that time? Ian Welsh does this for his blog an usually makes his goal. I would be happy to toss a few bucks your way each year like we do with Mr. Welsh. It works for him and I suggest it would work for you.
Hi Wolf, as long as the beer money keeps increasing, keep doing that way. I’ve been reading your great articles and throwing in my thoughts also. Great work. Regards Steve, UK.
Wolf – Could you follow the model Lucianne is using? The ads are still there, but for a fee a user accesses the site in a form that comes without ads.
Wolf, maybe you could do a ‘tip jar,’ like NC does? I ponied up for that once, then realized some of the content comes from WS!
See the banner at the top of the site
https://wolfstreet.com/how-to-donate-to-wolf-street/
Here’s a modest suggestion. Twice a year do a fund-raising post with specific time and amount goals. Refer to this goals at the top of each post for the next 2-3 weeks. What amount needs to be donated to reach the goal. This seems to work for some of the other sites that I value.
Also, I second the suggestion above to make the “donate” button more prominent and “click easy”.
I personally value your site for a truly unique perspective and original analysis. Keep up the good work.
Make it free with ads for everyone.
Make it paid without ads for those who don’t like ads.
Everyone has an potions, everyone is is happy, works perfectly for my website.
Personally, I don’t think the ads are that obtrusive.
That said, the best solution (although I’m not sure if it’s possible given the platform this site is on) might be to have an option to pay a subscription fee for an ad-free experience. If you don’t pay you keep seeing ads.
In any case, keep up the good work, Wolf!
I agree. I’d subscribe if ads were removed, (provided the comments remain civil).
Bottom line… thank you.
I love your site and I check it everyday, sometimes multiple times a day. I share links with friends and family. As someone who has dedicated my life to issues of educational equity I find your values driven approach refreshing in an industry plagued by greed and self interest. Anyone with Google can find your site, and it’s filled with wonderful information that they can use to better their situation. FOR FREE. I’ve learned a lot from your site. especially regarding the interconnectedness of the global economy. But there are also some really basic things I learned from your site and the comments shared by some folks.
1) don’t get self into an 8 year car loan. that’s dumb.
2) don’t buy in bubble or succumb to FOMO. also dumb.
3) S**T’s getting freaky. Get out of debt now. SMART!
Do you realize how much impact this has on the quality of my life? It is all so simple but for someone who has never had access to financial or economic literacy these simple and obvious facts are invaluable. I am down to 1/10 of the debt I had when I started reading your site. Each time I read about data signaling economic slowdown I am more motivated to save and prepare should my family be impacted. I owe you an IPA.
Wolf it’s Joe Ryan from Canada please keep doing what you love. I’m old too and volunteering for no beer just to help out. I never miss one of your offerings. I hope like me you don’t really need the beer money anyway but Patreon would be a way for us to help keep things running. If there were more humans like you on the planet you’d likely have nothing to write about. Thank You!!
First, Thank You! As a retired reader trying to survive on Social Insecurity and a small amount of savings, I am a reader who would never follow behind a paywall.
Second, there is one other factor you failed to mention in your otherwise rational logic. If you rely on advertising, you become at the mercy of the agencies that place the ads. Another trend we’ve seen in the last few years is companies like Google pulling their ads from websites that don’t follow a line that makes Google money. Thus, suppose you went behind a paywall, started replacing the churn in subscribers, then one day out of the blue you find that Google has pulled all their ads from your site because they didn’t like something you said. This is something that has been common in the past in printed newspapers and magazines. Prof Chomsky mentioned it as one of the ways that the media is controlled in his 1980’s classic Manufacturing Consent. And it has clearly moved onto the internet in recent years as we see various arguments of Google and their Youtube subsidiary and others saying they ‘demonitized’ websites that dare to say something that Google doesn’t like.
So, thanks for this. If Bernie’s bill increasing the SS benefits actually passes the Congress where “the bankers own the place” and if it was actually signed into law, then I’ll send you a donation when I can afford to. :)
I’ve already had my battles with Google. I know how that works. What they define as “dangerous and derogatory” content is amazing. I’m just the little guy. I’ll give it a good fight. But in the end…
Even more problematical for smaller conservative sites, like Len Penzo’s.
I can imagine!
Please don’t forget the last point: one day this insanity might end, or the central bankers might right the economy, or the MSM…, and you lose all your readers. There will be nirvana and no need for Wolf Street.
Thank you for doing this.
Wolf,
I have appreciated reading your articles for about a year now. I came across your site by researching the housing bubble (I am a Nashville resident), hence the username Not Buying.
I am curious, if there are ads on your site, but they are not clicked on, do you still get revenue from it? I am trying to understand if “clicks” matter for ad revenue – my guess is they do, but even the mere presence of ads on the site also generates revenue.
One other thing I would mention as an alternative – I see that you have a “donate” section on your website, but it would be beneficial to make it more visible (perhaps on the front page, or in a sidebar so it is always seen). I was unaware of your donate page until today.
I think a portion of the folks who would be “willing to pay” for a subscription to your site would be more than happy to make a voluntary contribution. They just need to be more aware that it exists. This way, you can keep your content free, but folks will be more aware of the ability to donate and thus you can increase your revenue that way, without affecting access to the site.
Just a thought!
NotBuying,
There are two basic ways I get paid for ads: for many ads I get paid only when they’re clicked (cost per click or CPC); CPC ads are via Google, and they pay very little. All my fill-in ads are that way.
For other ads, I get paid for “eyeballs” … just displaying them on the page that someone is reading gets me paid (cost per thousand or CPM). CPM ads are via my ad agencies, and they pay a lot more, even if no one ever clicks on them. But it makes the advertiser happy when you click on them anyway, and it makes them even happier if you buy the product or service.
I have gone ahead and set up a $5 monthly donation! Cheers!
The ads question is not black&white. There is a compromise I think, we should support. I am perfectly fine with ads whitelisted on ABP. The rest I will not tolerate – they are gettting more intrusive and irrelevant by the day.
Slow witted me just had an epiphany,ad reading to secure beer money to tap a better brain,!! Wow, this internet thingy might work after all.
*chuckle…*
Moderation attempt ; Your analysis, clarity and presentation in what you do is a “better brain” compared to mine . Ad clutter is a small price to pay in order to gain access. Your output is easily worth a $100 a year subscription. I have not checked out your donation feature. I hate credit cards on line to the point I wait for my WSJ subcription expiration 3rd or 4th mailing offer for a check payment option,(I am getting am long in the tooth).
If I donate have a beer on me
Thank you very much for staying with the advertising-supported model! I love your blog, read every post and listen to every podcast, but I probably would not be a paying subscriber because my finances are limited. I do however think you should be paid well for your work and I’m sorry to hear that the ad supported model is only providing beer money. I’ve read that for popular blogs there are better paying advertising programs called Mediavine and Adthrive, maybe that will help. Good luck going forward and thanks again for all you do!
Wolf I am like many readers who I am sure love your articles and insights. You confirm what I sense about the growing challenges of this current economic cycle. I love to see more data so i can predict how far way this coming downturn may be. I think you could offer a premium service for $75 a year with some exclusive reports. Everyone else keeps getting access. Promote it as a way to support your good work and i for one would sign up. One of my good friends does this type off free and paid at his Organic Insider newsletter.
Wolf,
Ads are okay with me as with many of the readers. Why not look at contributions (like oftwominds or nakedcapitalism)?
Also pdfs nominally priced like Charles Hugh Smith (oftwominds)
Thank you, Wolf! Please keep on keeping on!
Wolf, your perspective on life is refreshing. The analysis on this site is often about the perils of greed, and clearly you’ve applied those lessons to this endeavor. Thank you for pushing the larger conversation and my own thinking across so many topics.
Site is great. And, it might be better for you to financially engineer a revenue stream from advertisers … that would give you real operating income and a chance to build a great and profitable company and career.
A big part of the site’s appeal is the varied and lively comments from your readers. If you make it a fee-based club, you likely lose the perspective from your frugal-minded folks. (Many of the comments seems to come from the prudent among us.)
If you keep your service free, you will have a much wider audience and increase your chances of gaining national fame ;) Recognition may lead to some exciting and lucrative offers (e.g. book deals, guest speaker, show commentators.)
I hope all of your hard work pays off and you can continue to offer this highly interesting web site!
My take is that I don’t really like paywalls, because it excludes a lot of people who are outside it, and restricts important information. How many people would be willing to e.g. get into a link to a great article, sent by someone they know, if it’s behind a paywall? Sites such as this deserve a broad (and casual) readership, simply because of their honesty and their eye opening properties.
Why not do like some other great sites out there and start a fundraiser each year, with targets at different levels for extra content?
If it fails, then it fails. But I would be willing to bet that it won’t fail. So long as you stay honest (most important of all!), popular and relevant, and post loads of knowledgeable articles, like you do currently, then every year I’m sure there will be a sufficient portion of your regular readers who have the will and the means to shift a bit your way in order to keep the content running, and maybe make it worth your while.
Same boat. Tries selling but books & nada. So now I have them up for free. It’s all about teaching & sharing with each other, not the money. http://paulnew.epizy.com/ucancontactme/index.htm?i=2
Words with Friends allows you to pay a small amount to bypass the ads. Personally I never paid it, I just deal with the ads, but some prefer to.
I understand there is some difficulty in programming for that model – duplicate sites for paid vs nonpaid, trouble merging the comments onto both, etc. Just thought I’d mention the idea.
I love your site btw – it’s definitely a favorite online stop for me.
National Public Radio does this. Subscribe and you get to avoid the fund drives by getting a password to access their “stream” online. But for people who can only afford a couple of C batteries every 6 months in the “survival” radio a girlfriend bought ’em years ago, there’s still access (as the aforementioned C battery consumer).
Wolf, good on you for keeping the site free and available for all. It’s one of the highest quality sites on the internet for this type of content in my opinion, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your measured tone compared to the Chicken Little gold fetishists and the clueless forever-up bulls. I usually browse with ad blocking on but I’ll happily disable it for the TESTOSTERONE PIT. Keep being awesome.
Wolf, what ever it takes to keep your site going, I have no problem paying or clicking on ads. You are one of a kind, especially in this greed stricken world. I know you love what you do, so keep doing it and many, many more healthy years to you.
Wolf
Thanks for the from the gut explanation. Really appreciate your commentary. If you ever get to Hawaii give me a shout. I’ll take you to the best craft breweries on Oahu. Local IPA and PuPu Platters, my treat.
Wolf
I agree, the subscription model would turn the site into a desert And you’d lose the influence that u get from being free.
Couple of suggestions.
1. Sell t shirts, sweatshirt, hats for a bit of a exaggerated mark up. I assume this work can be farmed out or you could higher someone ?
2 every so often do a go fund me with an explicit public counter as to ur goal And how much you have taken in.
Maybe combine 1 &2?
Thanks
Love the site!
2
I need a Wolf street hat.
Incredibly honest, thank you sir! Have been reading for a long time and will continue to. God Bless my friend.
Wolf
How do adblockers work in terms of your revenue stream from advertisers?
Do they know that a reader of Wolf Street is using an adblocker?
I have disabled mine.
Add blocking eats into my beer money, that is clear. I don’t know how much… it’s not the end of the world.
But I totally get ad blocking. I get why people do it, and I can’t blame them. As some commenters have said here, I love it when people who block ads either whitelist my site or disable ad blocking for my site, or donate to my site.
Sorry, I just turned off the Ad Blocker for Your site.
I see now that it’s not much of that stuff, not enough to disturb me.
And thank you for your efforts.
A propos:
What do you think about a new regulation to stop short selling? This already happened, when the “game” got very uggly in the great recession, now for ex. with WIRECARD.
And if a new law would impose that you must keep your shares at least one day (or longer) before you can sell it again? What would it mean to volatility?
When I browse incognito, I see the ads. I have whitelisted your site. Some of the ads make me laugh (though they are not intended to). Like
“Check out these 19
insanely cool gadgets you
didn’t know you needed”
Hi Wolf,
I have to say I have seen this coming for a while. Your information is so very good AND so very readable AND your comments section so valuable that I have said to myself more than a few times “Gee, how does he support himself enough to continue on?”
I restore antique British cars. I’ve been doing so for more than 40 years. In an age where repair shops charge $120 an hour, I charge $55 and am happy with that. Why so low? Because I love what I do and that is (only) why I have done it all these years. There is little thanks in my work. No problem, like you I intend on doing what I LOVE till “my brain freezes over.”
Life forces these decisions upon us. I (mostly) lost the use of my right arm a while ago but I keep on working. I could have retired. Nope. I just keep my rate low and make no apologies.
Yes, $50 a year would be a problem. Maybe I would allow myself to subscribe but it does come as an added expense for one who is on a tight budget already.
I know whatever you chose will be very fair. You have proven yourself to me to be this way over and over again. Thank you, Wolf.
Change your labor rate to $55.10
You earn more and support WS and if anyone asks about the ten cents, you can tell why and maybe they’ll check out Wolf Street…Win win win!
Thank you for all you do Mr. Richter!
Your example in fiscal responsibility, is practically biblical.
Maybe setting up a link where soft payments could be made by those who aren’t afraid to let the moths fly from their wallets! Perhaps via that glorious salvation to all financial ailments… BitCoin?? (Sorry, I couldn’t refuse! I’d be more at ease sending cash in a white envelope to a PO Box!!)
Cheers!!
I really enjoy the content you publish here Wolf.
Like you, I have been making a nice little chunk of change online with content that has bought me my fair share of beers.
I think your decision to keep the site with ads on it works just fine and is smart. After all many here would never have discovered your site if it were paid. Now that you have a specific type of base of readers as a majority you still have others who salivate for fresh interesting content that you provide.
I think a third option would be to offer a more interactive premium based type of content in the form of audio like you are already doing with your recap of the week. Even if you had a nice chunk of people who tuned in each week that paid to pick at your brain on the knowledge you have been accumulating for the week, I think it could make for interesting discussion and grow your community a bit more on the paid side of things.
Even if you didn’t want to do video but allowed for audio along with a chat discussion to answer and share thoughts it could be fun. Replays would always be available for premium members.
Just a thought!
The most annoying thing about paywalls aren’t the paywalls themselves. It’s the constant whining from people about the paywall; on an econ-blog, it’d be more annoying since TINSTAAFL…
The online advertising problem isn’t really about the clicking or displaying of ads; it’s that the online ad market is dominated by 3 advertisers (FB, GOOG, and AMZN) who are constantly siphoning the revenue from the publishers.
So far, the BORG 3 haven’t figured how to monopolize podcast advertising yet.
Yes, but you aren’t going to use the web much if you find that every single site is paywalled and needs a subscription.
Personally I just avoid paywalled sites, and also know that if I want to simply publish/share information and run comments it costs almost nothing but some time. The web itself is not expensive.
After that it is a personal choice of the meaning of the site, and the work you put into it, and if or how that has anything to do with income.
Wolf,
I just want to thank you. I’ve learned so much from you.
Long time reader always riveted..love it.
Absolutely wonderful, thank you so very much.
Thanks for keeping it free. I’m a new reader and I don’t bother with paywalled sites because I don’t have the money and there is plenty of free content.
I think news in the future will be philanthropic and run as labour-of-love. At least until proper pricing returns to all the other goods we have to buy in life.
The newspapers were once all 10c each and even then most people were just buying them for the classifieds!
Happily whitelisted, and clicking a couple of ads every time.
Your work is quality, Wolf, and the model you are sticking with keeps an intelligent and polite commentry.
The problem with the other models is that they rapidly seem to attract the trolls, losers and fakers.
Enjoy your beer!
Wolf – I’m a miserable old barstard who has never given you a nickel. I just want you to know that is (currently?) out of necessity, not choice, and that you bring joy to me every day with your insight, your honesty, your goodwill, and your quirky trans-Atlantic wit.
I thank you. And I thank your understanding wife more.
Wolf, I would enjoy my beer with a Wolf Street Beer Stein….or mug!
Did you check out the Guardian newspaper model. It’s a sort of donation model.
That’s borne out of desperation. And the guardian has way more overheads: office buildings, lifestyle sections and other pap, a more complex IT dept that has to maintain the apps and the moderators/socialist thought police.
Wolf,
Your approach is both thoughtful and admirable. As others have suggested, it is fairly easy to allow those who contribute a certain amount to use the site ad-free.
In any case, the ads are not very intrusive, in my view, and are a tiny price to pay for the knowledge found on the site.
Cheers!
Thanks for the low-down on the “crumbs”. And thanks for keeping the site without a paywall. I find your info. quite interesting……with a definite leaning to a negative perspective on most research. Nevertheless, your input is interesting and I appreciate your time and effort on our behalf. Keep up the good work and thank you again.
I really wanted to donate with some kind of bitcoins..
You should have included what the price of your favorite IPA cost in your area, it would have been fitting to at least buy you a beer each month for your work in helping me wasting my time :-)
I hope my donation will get you one or two.
Most IPAs at various restaurants and bars run between $7 and $9 for a 12oz glass. I just had a 22oz glass of Speakeasy Big Daddy IPA for $13, plus view of the full moon, the Bay Bridge all lit up, and the SF skyline as seen from the waterfront in Sausalito.
Favorite site. Was not aware how website revenues work, so thanks for numbers. If this site isn’t worth $5 month, I don’t know what is.
Member: Five Dollars A Month Club*
*If the Club catches on big, I want to be invited on the yacht, and not in the off season!
You’re invited on mine.
It’s in Antibes.
* Wolf can come as well.
You’re on! Is yours the one with the heli-pad?
You must be joking.
Eclipse, Pelorus or Le Grand Bleu could pick mine up in their davits.
Nevertheless at you’ll enjoy steering 20 tons at 30 knots with a pair of big Cats throbbing away under the deck.
Great post, thank you, Wolf. One thing that I know you are aware of, but only hinted at above: you have many knowledgeable readers and Commenters who contribute to the quality of the site.
Seems to me that a subscription model would tend to lessen this feeling of WS group commitment and contribution. We’re in this (attempt to fathom the economy and its players) together.
That said, I hope that you do well financially, and clearly you deserve more than beer money.
I find the ads annoying but tolerable. I have been in/on several forums in the past which changed models, with subsequent great upheaval. I still visit a few favorite websites which put up little or no advertising; I don’t know how they pay the bills; they are nice quiet places to visit. Economics being so often, innately unsettling, anyway, the ads appearing on WS are not too jarring a note.
IF you had a mailing address, like to a P.O. Box, I would send you a donation check. It’s all about my personal security; I still feel as if a check in the mail is more secure than posting my credit card number to a website. Any chance of a mailing address, or is this a hopelessly old-fashioned concept wrt WS funding ???
Thanks again, as always, for what you do. We owe you.
I have a PO Box. It’s at the bottom of every email my site sends out to subscribers of my free “email updates.” To make it easier, that address is:
Wolf Street Corp
1288 Columbus Ave. #196
San Francisco, CA 94133
The check is in the mail.
WOW!
WSKJ,
And thanks for bringing it up. I have now added the PO Box to the how-to-donate page. It seems other people too prefer mailing checks — and I love it because no middlemen get a cut.
Not sure why I didn’t think about it before :-]
Thanks for the address .Check is in the mail. My accountant said I can deduct it! If I find out you got a G4 I will have to cut you back
thank you wolf and keep it up. if the beer money ever runs short,let me know and i’ll buy you a beer. best beer pubs in the country are right here in portland.
Thank you for all your hard work! This is easily my favorite website to visit each day. The analysis is honest, data driven, and isn’t muddled with carnival barking you see on so many other, similar sites. Plus, your weekly wolf street report is to the point and a joy to listen to. I would tolerate significantly more ads if need be!!
Thank you Wolf!!
Hi Wolf
Your site is one of the few populated by adults who have not lost their capacity for critical thought. In an era when the mainstream media publish what is primarily propaganda and disinformation, a site that attempts honesty and transparency becomes even more a national treasure.
Politically you and I have substantially different perspectives, but the loss of Wolf Street would indeed diminish us all. I don’t have the answers, but retreating behind a paywall is not one of them. Stockman’s diminished web presence (another author with which I often fundamentally disagree but find well worth reading) is a perfect example of the trade-off between reaching enough people to have an influence and perhaps making enough $$ to operate as a business.
I don’t know if your site engine supports it, but maybe have a subscription site that gets rid of the ads along with the regular site.
Wolf, maybe you should have your “Donate” link at the end of every article?..
Yes, thank you very much for this site. I am a long time reader and first time poster. I really appreciate sites like yours that are data-driven, empircal evidence-based, and follow it to the truth, no matter where that leads. I would happily pay the subscription in case you ever change your mind, but your position on this really resonated with me…I too feel like my younger years were a sacrifice for my personal financial position and my tolerance for painfulness has greatly diminished. Wishing you all the best!
This can’t be your last gig because your next one needs to Fed Chairman!
“Spend much of my time researching, mulling over, and diving deep into data and analyzing what I find, and then writing it all down to where it makes sense even to me, and building charts that even I can understand at one glance.”
Thanks for being humble…. And Thank you for giving your impartial opinion and analysts about all these topics. As a non economics/finance guy, it’s nice to be able to read about these, not being shrouded in mumbo jumbo talk or mountains of bs.
I know a blogger who had enough readers to make 500k from subscriptions. That was 5 years ago. 200$/year.
Very involved financial stuff with insider info.
And I know for a fact that 5 years later he’s losing between 10 and 20% of subscribers/year.
He gets a few new ones but not enough.
He’s older and can retire.
Just saying that the model is declining. There’s just too much excellent free stuff out there and not enough brain time for the customers, nor enough will to pay.
I love your site.
I wouldn’t pay (and money is no issue for me).
It’s just too complicated to sign up , remember pw’s , etc……
Keep going.
I like what your doing as is.
Thank you.
Just made a donation. Worth mentioning that while the “How to Donate” shows up on my browser computer screen, it is hidden behind a menu button on my iPad reader. So some people may be unaware of how to donate. Thanks to commenters above posting the link.
I think this is a good decision. Paywall is frustrating and limiting. You also have to decide what to charge, and that depends a bit on reader preferences and finances. I like the free mode, with an option to donate. One thing you might think about Wolf, is to do one blog post a year, similar to this post, where you explain things and put a link in the post that let’s people donate. I get tired of the incessant appeals some places have for funds, but I think a yearly request would be perfectly acceptable with your readers.
I value this blog for your insightful and honest commentary, the lack of spammers/trolls etc in the comments, and the insight that many readers offer.
I have so many condoms on my computer I can’t see the donate banner either. I block all scripts not directly associated with functionality of a web site. This practice I will not stop.
Try noscript on your browser and see just how many hidden trackers are trying to run a script on any mainstream website. It’s stunning.
They are selling the traces of your thoughts and desires to all takers.
The ads do not bother me. I will click on a couple everyday if that helps. Keep up the great work!
Wolf,
I suspect that I’ve read 90%+ of your articles going back to the testosterone pit days. Wolfstreet is pound-for-pound one of, if not the, best sites of its kind on the internet. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I started my modest blog/news aggregator (The Sounding Line) and I will keep linking to your articles so long as they are free, whatever that’s worth.
The advertising model is brutal but the day that Wolfstreet goes behind the paywall will be a sad day and a bad omen for the rest of us.
Thanks for all the work
Wolf, love the site, and I don’t care a hoot about the ads. That’s just the price to pay, and a small price at that, of getting great content. I imagine the ones who complain about the ads are just the loudest, and hopefully not a significant number. It must be downer though to do a lot of work (for free) and then get complainers-who I doubt would pay anyways. Once again, appreciate the site and the content.
Wolf,
Glad you have this site, keep up the great work. It’s thought provoking and informative.
Wolf,
I agree with Joe above. I have only recently found your site and feel I am learning something each time you post.
Thank you for sharing this insight.
Why not try a beer money fundraiser, a la Naked Capitalism? I wouldn’t have found your site had it not been free. I’d gladly kick in a contribution annually.
I wouldn’t pay for a subscription, but I turned my ad blocker off. Many people use ad blockers. Maybe a summarization of the above text with a short plea to white list the page could raise beer money to liver-damaging levels.
Hey Wolf,
We spoke a while back about this very thing and surprisingly you went dark on me.
My advertising model (building) would remove 99% of your ads (that nobody ever clicks) and could generate north of 10k a day (lotta beer) if my calculations are correct. You said 10k was a small % of your readers so for argument sakes I assumed your readership was 150k a day, and if each reader read 2 stories a day they’d each see 1 ad and you’d generate between $60-98.00 CPM. I’d really like to help keep Wolfstreet free and fun for you while rewarding which every venture should be in my opinion.
If you’d like to rekindle the conversation, I’d enjoy that and if not, I would like to wish you all the best going forward.
Kind Regards,
John
Wolf,
I admire your dedication and enjoy your site. Your thoughts on this seem correct, the ad supported model frees your time for your work though Alphabet and Facebook eat the profits. With Apple finally allowing for analytics in podcast data revenues are soaring as is the quality if production.
See: https://awfulannouncing.com/ringer/the-ringer-podcast-ad-sales-outside-investment.html
You could publish twice the whole thing if people are bothered by adds:
a) with adds + no subscription
b) without adds but a small subscription?
You could this way verify how many would really pay to be without adds, earn a bit more with a limited increased workload.
Merging the comments might be a bit tricky but could work
Business Insider recently went to a split system. They still have free content but also have select articles sequestered behind a paywall (BI Prime)
As for me, the ads aren’t a bother at all. As a matter of fact, I’ll start clicking on them just to increase your revenue.
All of us owe a huge debt of gratitude to you for the superb content throughout your site, Wolf.
Like some others here say the adverts don’t bother me.
Should you choose to move to a subscription model, I would pay the sub to access the data you provide, Wolf.
Keep up the good work Wolf! I enjoy reading your thought provoking articles to get my dose of economic sanity in this insane economic world of debt laden growth. The ads don’t bother me at all. Although I’m noticing that more YouTube channels are being interrupted by advertisements.
I’m surprised that you post daily, that’s got to be a lot work. Maybe post less often?
Btw I’ve been reading the articles posted on the Econimica blog site on the demographic time-bomb that’s contributing to the slowing global economic growth. His site doesn’t have any ads, but he only posts weekly at most.
Wolf
You’re still Testosterone Pit on my firefox browser, actually I still have Neithercorp (Now alt-market) up there as well. As you may recall, when I was still using Internot Explorer, it would serve up ads that were keyed to the subject of the article. Talk about obvious….
I’ve got you on my main browser page favorites, because you’re habit forming.
The ads dont bother me, they sometimes amuse, and i’ve clicked a few.
But you, MC01, and Don Quijones have all added to my awareness, as well as one of the best commentariats out there. Thanks, and I suppose PayPal is a necessary weevil, since it is the currency of the internet. Snail mail would be nice?
Thanks for all of the excellent articles, Wolf! I personally look forward to reading them. I have donated to you in the past and have made thousands by becoming educated about various topics you cover. I truly appreciate you. Might I suggest a friendly reminder every now and then or an email solicitation occasionally to remind your readers that donations are accepted and the site is free? As we all know time goes by quickly and I honestly can’t recall if it was last year or 2017 that I donated. I will do so in the near future as a token of my gratitude to you. Best regards, Jas
Wolf,
Your site is objective, factual and educational. Please do continue until your brain freezes over. The dedication and efforts presented in the Articles are outstanding.
I check your site every few days along with Zerohedge and a few other alt to msm sites. Just to check what msm leave unsaid. I then read newspapers from each continent to again see what msm have left out. Your writing with an eagle and critical eye is a breathe of fresh air along this navigated path to truth and maybe one of a handful of the last few thinkers of a free world.
If you put it behind a paywall you damage the comments section. Then it becomes like Bloomberg where the comments are groupthink. You are fun to read but I like the comments on the topics more than your own work because that’s where you see the cross section of thought from throughout the country or world. Your install base is the comments. Without it, it’s myspace with ads.
A very honest comment. I worked on a free blog for several years and developed a bit of an audience myself. As you say, part of the reason for publishing is to do the analysis and explain it in even way you yourself can understand it.
I admire your energy and your insights.
Thanks so much & good luck
Wolf
As a retired CFO, I see, understand & appreciate your angst; I have no wisdom for how to square this circle. The “Why WOLF STREET is Still Free and Not Behind a Paywall Though You Have to Put Up with Ads and I Make (Maybe) Less Money” article is a pretty balanced look at both sides of the coin. I highly value your (and DQ’s) fact & numbers filled posts.
In reading a select few of the above comments, I saw high & deserved praise, but I no donations (maybe a bad reading sample on my part). You mentioned $50/year as a fair subscription rate (perhaps an apocryphal figure…); I can pay more than most, so I’ve donated $100 for myself & and some other deserving reader.
STRONG SUGGESTION: don’t be shy about placing a “tip jar” on top of each page’s right-hand boarder (right under “Subscribe to WOLF STREET”), with tag line of “PLEASE CONSIDER SUPPORTING WOLF STREET, ESPECIALLY IF YOU USE AN AD BLOCKER”
This is one of my go to sites every morning. Reading about finances and economics is a just hobby for me so I wouldn’t pay for it if it was put behind a firewall. What I can and will do in the future when I visit this site is to turn off my ad blocker and click on a few ads here and there to help fund your IPAs and hopefully to encourage you to keep this site open.
One thing.
Try to limit ads whitelisted by ad blockers. They do not pass ads that do popups or popunders, or use too much CPU or bandwidth.
Adblock plus has information on this. I turn on adblocker when things get out of hand.
I clicked on a few ads on this site today and I plan to do the same every day I visit this site.
Thank you Wolf for this site.
My take on “hope” as a strategy: Word of mouth is *the* most legitimate and sustainable marketing strategy. You’re playing a long game. Think of the older, quiet, jewelry-free salesman in the back corner who never picks up the phone to beg a be-back to come back in. His phone just rings, then a nice couple shows up and buys a car. His customers must make an appointment with him because he’s legit busy otherwise.
It sounds like you’ve decided to be the online publishing version of that guy.
So … what to do with the brand you’ve built?
First, let’s look at the most historically successful publishing model: newspapers, delivered to customers for a subscription fee (that covered only the cost of printing & delivery). Ad pricing was based on circulation (i.e.: provable eyeballs). It paid for editors, staff writers and office overhead. If ad revenue went down, volume of content went down but circulation didn’t. When the local economy recovered, ad revenue recovered quickly because the circulation was still there.
The big challenge with today’s online model is that it’s so hard to prove “circulation”. They try to do it by clicks, but clicks aren’t eyeballs, and everyone knows this. So even though YOUR clicks are real, you’re competing for ad revenue in a space where too many clicks are are faked in some way.
Another challenge is that Wolf Street readers expect much higher content quality than most other sites. But I bet you get paid the same per click as aggregators and gossip sites, whose readers are notoriously fickle.
Also note that you view your readers as the customers. This puts you at a short-term disadvantage over sites who prioritize the other way around.
My conclusion is that you have a strong brand to offer potential advertisers, and could charge a premium for it, assuming you could figure out how to prove it.
One solution would be to mimic the historical success of 20th Century newspapers. They all traced their roots to the informal “News-Letters” of colonial times (the print version of what blogging was a few years ago). Over time, those grew from monthly periodicals to weekly, then daily. Benjamin Franklin is largely credited with monetizing this activity by offering small ads in his periodicals. Eventually, ad revenue completely dwarfed and overwhelmed subscription revenue, to the point where it was literally an afterthought. At their peak, ads took up nearly 70% of the copy space in most dailies.
So, why weren’t subscriptions offered for free? Two reasons:
1. People (generally) don’t attach value to anything free.
2. Publishers needed a way to prove how many eyeballs advertisers were reaching.
You could conduct a market test to see if you can monetize your brand without alienating current readers. Maybe:
1. Implement a nominal-fee subscription model to your podcasts. Something everyone can afford; say $12/year. Use Vimeo on-demand so you don’t have to do extra work. (https://vimeo.com/61103187)
2. Use the subscription numbers to prove actual eyeballs (as opposed to clicks) to potential advertisers.
3. Focus on what I call Faceburnt SME advertisers who offer services relevant to your demographic.
4. Try an ad that opens when viewers click through to the video (Forbes uses this model). See how successful you are at charging a premium for it.
5. Maintain 100% editorial control over ad content and behavior. (Again: Forbes)
6. Analyze the data you collect to decide whether to migrate your whole site to the model.
Some random thoughts:
Most people have no issues with ads per se. They use blockers because the sheer weight of internet advertisers slows browsing to a crawl, crashes older computers, and interrupts the reading experience (when an ad *finally* loads, the page must readjust and the reader must go searching for their place, if they can even find it again). If you can provide ads that don’t do any of those things (i.e.: built naturally into your layout), you should experience minimal pushback.
A lot of people do have issues with a subscription fee. But think of this: if you give them value (and you do) and they aren’t willing to pay you, then you have no value to them.
Without a subscription there is no way to distinguish between a click and an eyeball. To charge a premium to your advertisers, you need to prove that you provide real human eyeballs.
Full disclosure: I’m a subscription kinda guy. I think ads favor leviathans over mom-and-pop enterprises. But I get that ads democratize the web, so I’m conflicted. This is why I’d love to see a hybrid model, and why I believe it was so successful in the past.
Ideas for subscription models:
1. Buy-one-get-10. For $12, get a year’s subscription, plus tokens for 10 more people. Upon subscription renewal, any token that wasn’t used at least 6 times in the year expires. This is a word-of-mouth marketing strategy that also protects you from building up zombie members. Downside: An IT person is needed, adding cost.
2. Lifetime subscription: whenever a new subscriber signs up, they get a chance to buy a lifetime subscription for, say, $250. Allow payments as low as $1/mo. You’ll probably find this to be a popular option. It accomplishes three things. First, anyone can afford it. Second, it self-curates by rolling people off who don’t keep up their payments. Third, for wealthier people, it’s a nominal fee, and provides the thing they want most: convenience. Downside: marries you to ads forever because you can’t raise subscription prices if/when demand warrants it.
Wolf’s commentary did a pretty good job of describing why this won’t work. You’re basically describing how to polish a brick.
Dreaming up ways a couple million advertisers and hundreds of millions of web users SHOULD behave smells like a non-starter.
Don’t want to lose you. I have the answer.
Herd mentality. No more,” Lone Wolf.” Start a pack.
1. 5x top quality Bloggs. You finance, some one foreign policy. Some one Russia- Foe or Friend and some one China Century. Last ….Planet Earth today.
NOTE. Not facist or socialist. No sex obsessed fads or racist fork toungue rubbish.
Plain old fashion down the centre. The reader gets too think about it….an education.
2. THE GUEST READ. ….TOPIC OF THE DAY.
3. $30 per year FOR ALL 5 of them and a little 50 cent like button to press.
I prefer Apple pay on my iPad sooo easy-pesey.
4. $30 ÷ by 365 days a year is 0.0821917808 per day!!!!!!
Nowwwww what can l buy with that each morning with my coffee.
5. “Like” button 50 cents.
So l press,”like” for Wolffie, it’s only 58 cent in total for the knowledge.
You are smart, do the maths. Same, same for you intelligent readers.
Maybe duplicating here cos i didn’t read all the comments.
Stick with the ads but try out Patreon in conjunction.
Those who want the goss first without ads can read via that option and pay just a few bucks depending on how deep their pockets are and the rest of the cheapskates can stick with the ads and a delay (maybe a week).
Keep up the great work!
Great site. Doubt I would have developed the almost daily habit if it was behind a paywall. I try to make an occasional contribution and click on a few ads…glad to think it might wind up in a few IPAs.
My perspective …this site often includes the “rest of the story” by going deeper than most. And opinion injection is de minimus as facts and stats are more robust and organized as well. Opinion is minimal which is refreshing and a nice contrast to all the agenda-driven content on many sites. On the other hand, the comments banter and exchange of opinions adds seasoning to the main dish.
Best wishes for continued success.
you are doing a nice job. keep the site the same. Thanks
Wolf:
I remember the old name of your blog and even read a little of your book. Of course, I was a little skeptical of what might follow, not that there was any exaggeration found in the few pages of your book, but for me it was an old story, which does not keep anyone who participated in that profession, including myself, from being exceptional, just misplaced and underemployed.
Anyway, of late, and for some time now, you have been quite prolific in your article count. I notice the exceptional communication, sequential thought organization and excellent writing and grammar. Honestly, I have been selling you short for about six months, wondering how you produce as many as two (or more) well written articles per day. I was comforted by my mistaken presumption that you enjoy the assistance of at least two excellent writers and researchers who assembled the facts and did the grunt work, allowing you to give your critical direction final organization and then push “send”. Boy, was I mistaken? I came close to sending you my compliments on what I believed was the good work of some really smart staff. I am not making that up.
As for the subscription wall, my recommendation is to leave your site as free, (for those like myself who like free until it gets absolutely trashed with advertising). Maybe I saw, once, on your site a comment or a button for tin-cup contributions. Such a button cheapens your product. I would recommend a button that allows those that want to pay a price (about like the advertisers pay for a couple of hundred page clicks per year) to have access to the same content with no advertising to distract them. One of your commentators said that all media is destroyed by over saturation of advertising and that is correct. I can tolerate advertising as long as it stays in the right and left margins (no pop ups in your face) and allows the content to scroll down the middle, much like driving a northbound interstate lane with billboards, just over the fence, to each side.
The question of comparing the operation of website as it is, versus complicating it with a subscription system and marketing idea. The quality of all products generally decline when they employ a paid sales staff. So many good products get buried in companies with excessive corporate overhead generally displayed as S,G&A expense on the income statement, when the effective market moving saturation and effectiveness, could be accomplished if the price were reduced by the lost motion and sense of entitlement of the blue suede shoe guys. Keep the high quality and no sales staff.
Wolf, you are way above the typical news letter writer (huckster). The greater question is: Do you want, in this chapter of your life, to make truth or make money (by subscriptions). All the smartest people that I know share their knowledge in exchange for the sharing of the knowledge of others with similarly great perceptions. I believe that the greater potential for your profit will come from an unsolicited offer to purchase your perceptions and perhaps articles for use in a corporate way.
Keep up the good work and only surround yourself with folks with the same standards and motivations.
Very perceptive.
I would add that there are a few folks who write and publish worthwhile stuff for free. They can be found through DuckDuckGo (or even Google) by keywords or the titles of their work.
For example, a University of Michigan researcher analyzes U.S. Corporate function in our society and asserts its functions will devolve into more localized economic forms:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B16dMVHRjL5ddWVWQ1R5eURPWHM/view
There is some evidence of that trend in agriculture here in WV. Local farmer’s markets are now competing with regional grocery suppliers.
Wolf, I sit around on Sundays waiting for your report… This Sunday I ate too much lasagna and was about to go to bed when I seen it pop up. Naturally I listened to what you had to say because I respect what you have to say.
That being said, I HATE ads… They slow down every site that I enjoy. I refuse to participate. That being said, I enjoy your content and try to donate whenever I can. Tell you what, I’ll turn off ad blocker and do a bunch of searches for something I really want… If I can get it by clicking on your site I will pay a %10 premium. If I can get it at a better than expected price, I will allow the ads.
I run linux on low grade hardware but it works… Been thinking of upgrading…. Tell you what… I will try to be more understanding and turn my blockers off and get you some revenue.
If it pisses me off though, I will donate strait to your beer fund as usual. I hate ads.
Started reading back when you were testosterone pit at the top of the Zero Hedge site. I can’t even remember how long ago that was. You are right I probably couldn’t follow anymore if you went paywall. Thanks for what you do. Keep up the good work.
I enjoy this blog with its never ending bearish critique on all things economic.
At its heart I believe WS is a business blog, and yet it almost never provides investment advice. I can honestly say I’ve never made any money from following this blog. In fact, if WS were your only source for news you would never have invested a dime in the markets over the last ten years.
I’m going to respectfully say that I can’t see anyone shelling out $50 bucks for WS unless Wolf is going to start allowing his readership in on the secert sauce for his investment strategies. The site is interesting and provides context, but I’m sure most of his 500K readers want to know where he puts his money.
(He’s probably long Tesla and Netflix) :)
A couple ways to help Wolf out:
Post thoughtful comments. The comment section adds a lot to the content and promotes readership.
Post links to Wolf’s articles. Refer other people to the website.
Click on an ad now and then.
“Post links to Wolf’s articles. Refer other people to the website.”
Good idea! Helps keep it going.
Wolf: I vote for MORE ads. I don’t mind sitting through clickbait to read your content and esp the comments! You might increase revenue if you add ads to comments.
Don’t be shy.
Hi there, first time posting >> I’m a reader not a poster but this article demanded my 2 cents. I think your current model is perfect, I accept that the ads are necessary and I find them unobtrusive.
Although I appreciate your articles and the work required to write and post them, it is highly doubtful I would subscribe to a “pay for use” website. Just a FYI >> I hope you keep the format the same and thank you for all your insights whichever choice you end up making Wolf.
Ublock and AdBlockerPlus works very well. I’ve never seen ads here (sorry wolf street) and I’ve been reading this site for years. THANK YOU for keeping it free though … I never pay for sites. If I have to pay, I don’t read.
I don’t mind the ads at all, Wolf…carry on
Whichever financial model works I’ll still remain on board!
I worked on Wall St
for 20 years at some of the great bond houses.
Your work is as good or better than the analysts we had!!
Thank you so much!!
Hey. Loyal readers who find this site as valuable as I do. Yes, I’m talking to you! There’s a donate button. Use it! I hate ads. You hate ads. Take a minute and DONATE.
I don’t mind the ads. Keep up the great work.
Thank you!
Greatly appreciate your “daily” insights; the ads that appear on my devices accompanying your columns don’t bother me at all…they are “minimus”. Your insights make sense; something that so many others don’t. I visit sites that allow comments. Just reading about something does nothing for me. I want to know how others feel. Your site allows that with disciplined sanity (the discipline dispensed by you). Keep up the great work!
Wolf – another option – perhaps you could do what I am preparing to do in June…leave my beloved Alameda for my native NC where the real estate is 1/5th, where I can take my Bay Area salary and afford not only a nice home, but new (or newer) cars, and a boat to boot. When it’s too hot, i’ll Go to the mountains. When it’s too cold, I’ll go to FL or Mexico.
I love the Bay, but the Bay no longer loves me. It’s the promised land for sure, but the quality of life has steadily eroded to where it’s no longer justifiable.
Come to NC and your welcome to come over for an IPA any time, no charge!
I understand… But we just came back from a gorgeous hike on Mount Tam, with view of the Pacific and the Bay, and thick gloomy forests and steep trails as well as wide-open alpine meadows. The wildflowers have started coming out. 30 min by car from our place. Tomorrow I go swimming in the Bay at my swim club a few blocks down the hill. We’re outdoorsy people. And it looks like our souls have latched onto this place :-]
My choice to leave the place of my birth was not hampered by the esthetics of that place – Detroit in the early fifties.
My choice of solitude in the wooded mountains of WV would not be the most esthetic choice for most people, either.
Bur I believe I have more genuine personal liberty here than almost anyplace on earth. That’s what matters most to me.
First off, the Ashley Madison ads I see are totally AWESOME! Keep up the good work, as I never really noticed any of your other ads but pleasantly hard to miss a 25 year old super model in tiny lingerie filling the entire right side of my screen…SWEET…LOL
About the content, I read about 4-5 hours a day of mostly online financial sites, and this is one of my favorites for hard analysis without the political and social opinions that so many other sites seem to have no ability to avoid. I am more of a graph/chart guy, so I enjoy the visual data most. I would say the diversity of your forum members is rare, and it will change drastically if you make it pay to view. Without going into details, I have been in expensive subscription monthly services with live chat forums that included millionaire and even a few billionaire investors, and in lesser expensive live chat forums with more financial diversity that included all incomes in life. I must say I learned the most and got the best ideas when the groups are 99% diverse, and not just full of the top 1%.
In terms of funding, I tend to like the fund drives most as it is one and done, versus a subscription sort of service.
In Gratitude,
MoreMoneyPlease
I get the busty Thai and Russian girls and the “mature women” (usually on the left side) lusting for older men. People who block ads have no idea what they’re missing :-]
Well, this older man understands what he’s missing, among other things, his aim at the commode …
Mr. Wolf,
This is the great site, great personality behind it and your coverage of Spain’s economy is rare, real and very valuable.
Would you consider a “small donations” model from willing readers, as, for example, Charles High Smith does on his site?
I believe many readers would happily donate some money to keep the site going.
Just a thought.
Best regards and thanks for your work!
VL
Yes, I love it when readers donate. Here is how:
https://wolfstreet.com/how-to-donate-to-wolf-street/
Set up a site on Patreon for donations.
You will get a very good response. And you can easily include the link in your site.
Kudos to Mr. Wolf for your hard work and high quality contents!
I’m only a recent reader but I enjoy the discussion and love the information. It’s not the sort of thing I can discuss with family, friends or even work colleagues but I like being informed. I imagine this is what journalism looked like in the era of a local single page newspaper.
Hi Wolf,
I have to say, that the articles which you publish here are really good. I am not so old (26 now) but when I started to go on internet, it was in age of blogs around 2006 – 2010. Blogs was mostly non-comercial and the posts, links or articles which people publish there were amazing. They did that because they wanted and feel, same as you, that they can contribute to discussion or help some people understand. With recession around 2009 it changed a lot, people didn’t have money and time, so they stop to publish or withdraw from non-commercial work (also facebook and this kind of social media shuffle it a lot). In this days I don’t really feel, that there is much websites which provide some kind of really valuable information, it’s mostly prefabricated content for advertisement, a lot of spam (miss-information, information without value) and videos. To improve it little bit – at least in my country, I thought to translate some of the posts here to Czech, for local people to read it as well. I don’t expect crowds to stay in line for that, but if someone will search for some information he should have another option than main-stream media. Thanks for the good work.
Wolf, I love your work so keep it up! And thank you enormously. Tom
Hi i have not read all of the 199 replies as of my writing, so if this has been said i apologise. Maybe you could offfer a voluntary subscription as Mozilla Firefox does and see what happens.
Hi Wolf. Just want to add my ‘thanks’ for the work you do putting this site together. I read everything you post, it is my ‘go to’ place for sensible and thoughtful commentary.
I find the comments section, without doubt, the best in blogland. Courteous and grown up.
Excellent.
Wolf,
Your site is essential reading. I applaud your decision to keep it free and open. Thank you.
-Anthony
Wolfstreet is one of the best blogs out there and please keep it going!
I think the combination of free access plus micro payments will be the future. It’s natural to the millenial and later generations from the apps and games they grow up with. With a paywall you’d probably only catch older and more affluent readers with the other side effects you mention.
Agree that ad-based is tricky, for the growing backlash in general and also the incentive it sets for biasing the content towards growing the number of viewers at the expense of quality – the (d)evolution of Zerohedge is an example.
Hi Wolf, I came across your website a few years back and I got interested when in one of your articles you said “economies are too complex for economist to understand anymore”, or words similar. Please correct me if I am wrong. Anyway I thought finally someone had the guts to say it as it is. Don’t change Wolf. Your blog provides a great tolerance of opinion and topics. As the song says ” We love you just the way you are”. Another friend from downunder.
Well done Wolf. Keep it up. We need the privateers.
Wolf
Thanks for all your great work.
Have you considered getting a corporate sponsor? This may boost revenue.
Don’t go paywall. David Stockman did this and lost a ton of readers.
Do what you are passionate about, and you will be rewarded. Already, as you have discovered, you have a ton of loyal fans.
Virtue is its own reward, but DAMN! you can’t eat it …
You should do it like Limbaugh. He has a free radio show where you get commercials and then a subscription site where he goes more in depth into things and has access to archives and more features. You could do general articles under the current process and then use the paywall for the less casual readers who are really wanting in depth analysis of the same articles and you could do guest interviews with people who have insider knowledge on certain subjects. It doesn’t have to be one or the other, and maybe the free articles will entice people to try the subscription.
Hey Wolf,
I got here from your occasional appearances on Keiser Report and I love your data driven analysis. I’d pay now that I’ve read your site for several months, however I can’t say I would have bothered initially if it were behind a pay wall (How could I tell if the content was good unless I paid?)… the ol’ catch 22.
I’d say any sort of signing in / process of authentication is the actual problem. Any time wasted by doing this and then filling out CC information is just not worth the effort for the majority. This problem will most likely be alleviated once people are used to keeping a small amount of money in their browser (like Metamask or something along those lines) and ‘tipping’ for articles they enjoyed reading. Feels like a cultural norm that has yet to be adopted.
Anyways, all the best, keep up the great work!
Cheers,
Tez
Ooh, just read another comment above about Patreon – that’s another good idea for passive income.
my advice is to set up autopay when you’re feeling generous. this site is worth the entertainment and information!
ack, if only we could get an edit button though. meant to say the entertainment/info is worth at least a small donation.
https://youtu.be/DSTd1LuiVUs
If your revenue is truly ‘beer money’ – doubtful – then take down all your Ads and put up a bigger tip jar button. You will sleep better. Perhaps not on better pillows every year, but at least in the high cottons.
“Heck” let’s just make a beer drinking game out of this. Say the 10th person to donate whenever you use “heck”, as in “nothing goes to heck in a straight line”, gets a non transferable coupon for a free high gravity beer at your favorite Bar in your neighborhood. Good for 30 days or so. Must be present to drink, sort of thing. Or for those not wishing to travel to Frisco for a free beer, a coupon redeemable for a free Housing Bubble 2 chart! The rest of us could just go to the frig to grab a cold one and wait for the coming of the end of the world. “Heck”, you could slowly add mugs and whatnot – “I Drink at Wolf Street” – and then, before you know it your Bar and all the beer breweries would want to be doing direct advertising at your site. And you could tell the wife: “I’m back, Baby, back in the game!”
why I was working so hard for so little…………….OK, I was with it since Testosterone Pit, and that was a bad name.
I do buy your books and will carry some to get signed someday.
You have one of the very few left that carry real financial news. I do get a kick out of the commenters as so many of them have anecdotal and general information.
Keep fighting the good fight Wolf. Your work is always thought provoking, and that is greatly appreciated. I always look forward to your posts.
As you know, there’s more to life than socking away money (and spending all your energy trying to figure out how to get more and more).
Thank you for what you do. I am grateful. I am one of your many readers where my finances do not allow for subscriptions. I have job that I love but it doesn’t pay much or allow for any extras.
“I usually browse with ad blocking on but I’ll happily disable it for the TESTOSTERONE PIT. Keep being awesome.” – Nathan, in an earlier post in this discussion
This will be the solution for me, if this site requires loading the ads. That way, I can ad block most sites (or avoid them) and not run over my ISP’s data limit.
Bravo Lobo Auuuuuuuh
Mr. Richter,
Thank you for your site. I do not recall how I found it, but it now is a daily stop for me. Had it been behind a paywall, I never would have found it.
I especially like the objective style of your site – lots of factual data, some opinion or speculation, but never overbearing. The civil discussion following each article is another plus. I am totally dismayed and put off by people who post vulgar tirades impugning, IQ, parentage, etc. But not on your site. Many times there are other view points that are well stated and supported. Whether or not I agree, they do provide alternative insights and a reminder about the diversity of view points. Some are actually intriguing.
On occasion you have to remind people what is expected of them and indicate that you have to monitor what gets posted. Thank you for your efforts to maintain the quality of the discourse.
The worldwide contribution of comments is another large plus that likely would not happen with a paywall. Many times comments from outside the USA remind me that things can be very different from the environment I am accustomed to.
I totally get your reluctance to go behind a paywall because of the marketing and other things it would impose on you. I engage in a woodworking hobby from which people tell me I should sell things. But, I do not enjoy selling and it would take half my beloved shop time. Plus, the potential income would be measured in cents per hour. Extending your illustration, my beers would be few and far between. I find it more satisfying to give things away to people who really appreciate them.
I share the reluctance of WSKJ’s comment about donating via a credit card. I had looked at the donation button and was about to make the same PO Box suggestion as WSKJ. However, your response provided that mailing address – thank you. Please consider adding that text to the donate screen.
The ads? Yes, they annoy me, but not to the point I would abandon your site. Your text appears in the center third of my screen with most of the ads on the right. When sufficiently annoyed, I move the browser window to the right so that most ads are off screen. There is no way I will click on any of that stuff so that you get a couple of cents. I will, however, use that mailing address to buy you a beer or two.
There are good guys and bad guys. It all boils down to who you can trust. Good guys work for satisfaction and beer and have a red line. Bad guys work for money and carry a mattress on their back..
I trust the guys that work for beer. Thanks Wolf.
BTW, thanks for not requiring a damn facebook account to comment.
I am actually new to your website and articles. I really enjoyed reading your articles and subscriber comments, but I also liked your reply to them. I felt your moderating skills were superior. As far as being behind a paywall, I do not pay for any services like that. I started following Motley Fool in the 90’s. Pretty much stopped when they really started to monetize everything. I do think they operate an excellent service, but I am really not in it to pay for this service. As far as your business, you could hire one or two people and just be the editor. You could work less and still make great beer money. After reading a few articles and replies for two days, I can tell this is not where your heart is. I say find a way to increase your marketing demand as well as your subscribers using unique web page layouts and out of the box thinking. Some people are web page savy and others get lost in the mumbo jumbo. Anyway, I am super glad I found your website and I plan to visit regularly. I have been reading blog sites and forums for 30 years and have left about a dozen comments. Not sure what it was here, but felt I had to say something. All the best….
Second day reader and first time poster….
Hi Wolf,
I have only read the first page of comments so I apologize if this has already been suggested.
Why don’t you join some affiliate programs like Amazon has. You could put some general links on your donate page and you could even publish your links so people could edit there own bookmarked links like say Amazons so that they always go to Amazon using your link. I am sure there are lot of these affiliate programs around. I used the Amazon one years ago when I was publishing science e-books. I myself spend around 500 a month at Amazon and they pay from 10 to 4 percent based on product category.
You could even put a small banner at the top of the site showing last months affiliate income to remind and encourage people to use your links. Costs them nothing and supports your site, win win.
Wolf,
Thank you for what you do. Your work makes my days a little richer.
I consider Wolf to be the authoritative source on virtually everything financial and have sent links to his articles to many of my friends. I believe anyone who puts in this much time and effort deserves appropriate compensation, especially when you see the crap passing for news, financial or otherwise. You can tell that Wolf’s motivation for sharing his wealth of knowledge is his passion, not greed and it appears from all the comments, we appreciate and thank you for a job well done.
Wow! What a remarkable response – and I mean both yours and that of your readers, but….. realistically in life, reacting positively to the need for change is usually daunting, to say the least, especially as we age – no argument. I know this first hand because I am pretty sure that I’m older than you – a lot older, and while clearly not as smart, perhaps a bit wiser. So here are a few unsolicited thoughts.
To begin with you come across as a very thoughtful person and a skeptic with a tendency toward the negative view. That’s good for what you’re doing now but not for marketing which is understandably not your thing. You also appear to be a bit of a loner who has absolutely no interest in running with the crowd. I suspect these are two characteristics among others have been critical factors in the obvious success of Wolf Street to date. But is it possible that now the startup phase is behind you and the task of going forward – that of managing the growth of a meaningful enterprise is much more than one man’s hobby?
During my business career I more than once saw a highly talented individual create a service that clearly filled a need only to stumble when faced with the challenge of taking on a partner (not me!) to make the transition to a mature corporate entity. Examples of success are rare – Bloomberg and Bogle are two that come to mind. One of my favorite examples of failure to make this transition is Edwin Land of Polaroid, a sad case of a scientific genius who was a disaster as a CEO.
You point out there are many people on the street today who have lost their jobs as technology has wreaked havoc on the bricks and mortar side of the information industry. You might find it some talent out there.
It wouldn’t hurt to take a look….. JRU
There was a time when Wolf was looking for a sidekick – don’t know what (if anything) became of that …
i wish you were around here, RD, because i think things are gonna change for Wolf once he starts having meet ups here in town (or elsewhere as he travels).
but i think it’s gonna have to be new different and almost …”inspired” for it to take in this crazy new world that makes NO sense.
i think you’re in WVa or something… you have NO idea how different people are from these phones and how miserable it’s making people and complicating the stupidest of things.
it’s hardly over. you think people are distracted and insane now?
and most of the artist people like Alex from San Jose, or me become slaves to these people. day laborers, but they’re called part of the gig economy now because they’re not hanging on the corners with the Mexicans.
people aren’t that smart here about the bigger things now that those thinkers are aged out of this country and pushed to ice bergs in the suburbs.
i’m answering about how hard it’d be to find a worthy side kick here in town now. someone you’d WANT to have a beer with even after work.
mad rare, i’d say. and i generally like people. (up to a point)
x
don’t count him out. he’ll know where to go and where to take anything if he wants to “take it” anywhere. things die sooo fast and it’s a lot of WORK to be legitimate, real, and DO THE WORK of being a human.
meaning that i get his “last gig” thing. that’s the approach i’m taking to my new crazy underground fxck-the-internet venture. sure my one-of-a-kind clothes might end up online but I’M NOT DOING IT.
i’m going that maya angelou route of letting OTHERS do all the work of photographing and promoting ME while i go about my business.
how? i’m not sure. that’s the unnerving scary magic part of going with your gut and trusting that all this work will net something NO ONE even thought of that is so perfect in design …
i think the world is sooo crazy now in all areas, you have to ride it by going against it in SOME way so you’re not chasing numbers down like everyone else.
you money people love the word “diversify” in regards to your portfolios. i believe in the same tactic regarding that self employed maya angelou approach. that’s why i’m going into something NO ONE wants to do. a dying art: tailoring. but i’m going in for the casual route for men.
i got the women part of the biz a whole OTHER plan of having things ONLY in local stores and they’re one-of-a-kind. so you can’t possibly COPY them in china. they are art.
it has taken me 8 years to even think of something so SMALL and BACKWARD after our little publishing biz and my life as an author went poof with the reality of business in corporate america.
so give Wolf time… this is protein. not sugar, that he’s got here…
x
A sincere thank you for sharing your work and thoughts.
Sir,
this site informs me everyday. Your explanations make sense to someone who has not had formal training in these fields. You do a great service to me and others like me. Keep up the much appreciated work.
Wolf,
Also, with the Sticker/Hat/Mug/Shirt idea, you can do like charities do:
$10 gets a sticker
$30 mug
$50 T Shirt or Hat,
:
:
$1,000 – Wolf will perform a 1 minute live acapella version of any song the donor chooses.
Etc.
The possibilities are endless, use your imagination! :)
David Stockman used to be my favorite until he went behind a paywall. Unfortunately all who achieve some level of success usualy do so. With everything behind paywalks it would cost a fortune if one is a person of varied interests. Triage would be required. So I’ve dcided to put up with ads given a choice, and avoid paywalls. Greatful for your stance on this because I was wondering how long I would be allowed to continue reading your writing, and more recently listening to your weekly youtube audios. Thanks so much for your hard work and effort, from a greatful fan.
I love this site. I don’t always get here everyday but I always catch up and comment.
Count me among those that would pay a nominal subscription fee, would deactivate my ad-blocker, and/or leave a tip- whatever it takes.
Thanks for all you do.
LOVE your site and your work, good old fashioned common sense.
Will put up with the ads if necessary.
Old Codger. (Australia)
Wolf,
I found your site through a link on “naked capitalism” and have been a faithful reader ever since. I’m always amazed by your research and insights. As an individual trader/investor in my seventies on SS I very much appreciate the detailed information and the big picture you provide. Thanks much.
first time poster.
LoL, this comment stream is making me feel old.
I will hit the donation button when some of my eBay surplus sells.
I still miss the old Calculate d Risk and Tanta.
Good luck with keeping this sane.
Hi Wolf,
Thank you for all your hard work. I’ve been reading you for about 6 months and you are one of my go to outlets for housing and economic news. As a newbie to understanding our complex financial system I appreciate that your site is so approachable and lays everything out so that even beginners like me can understand. Keep up the good work!
Just piling on: YAY WOLF STREET GO GO GO! RICHTER 2020!
AFTER HOURS KITTEN:
you know i’ve always seen you with your own bar, Wolf, but now i think we should all just take over YOUR bar.
i wrote a long response earlier when it was about 240 comments or so, then i told myself to hush up and go to the gym.
well, i thought a whole lot riding my bicycle and working out and dancing in the sun…(what a place, huh?)…
anyhow, my idea:
James and i collect pint glasses from trips and they’re all broken now because we use them for everything. but point is, i used to have a set of pint glasses illustrated by ralph steadman and they were sooo hot.
so i originally said an idea like that since you all were talking swag. be careful of swag. it is a seductive evil thing that’ll leave you with a lot of cheap crap in what little space you’ll have in SF.
since even us who don’t give you a nickel, since we’re also upscale (ha ha ha…etc), and as an artist, i say you’ve gotta go better if you’re going for the swag.
now, as you know, every waking moment of my day is devoted to taking down technology and taking back my city, and thus i’m over here trying to duplicate a new self-employed model in an era when many of us indie types are broke now.
back to your bar…
no, really… i think when we have our meet ups there are special sets of pint glasses with different artists and ALSO i dig this idea: some of the best lines from your site.
they’d be collectible and ship some out if you want the hassle (why i’m going local is the hell of shipping out ANYTHING or receiving anything…especially GLASS. and why sell a set of four pint glasses over one? because shipping one’s a nightmare, so go for a better box and a SET to make it worth the hassle.
but i bet your bar would be willing to sell them from a shelf.
and if anyone’s in town they can go to that bar and soak up all the brilliance that has transpired there… the birth of a new counterculture because i have been astounded that there’s not any real …fight against any or all of this…
even the doc about suicides jumping from the golden gate bridge had some survivors saying things like, “the moment you let go, you regret it..”
but all these people letting go of life and NOT seeming to regret it?
but here…fxck yeah… i love seeing other astounded “what the fxck?” people.
anyhow. i’m going off again. at almost 300 comments in and two articles beneath the last one, i figured i’m safely in “after hours” territory where no one’s left to see this land grab of text.
anyhow, Wolf, i’ve already told you i’ve got art you can use and we can come up with new stuff. not to knock the main art!–i’m saying your site is not just a money site when you draw so many freaks artists badasses and independent thinkers. this is art territory. what art actually CEDED in becoming the mindless whore it has shamelessly become. i cannot even glance at the art scene. i don’t recognize anything anymore.
but i DO recognize the “avant gardie” as we call it, and this is it. fxck yeah…
because if you can solve any kind of economic puzzle and do what you love and hold onto your soul and not be on your knees under an overpass to make beer money or rent, then that’s defiance. rebellion. that’s all i care about.
anyhow, any way any where you can subvert these parasitic ad people and go it live or off their grids, i’m in.
x
Not a bad idea, Kitten Lopez. A set of 10. The first has this inscription: WOLFSTREET.com “Nothing goes to hell in a straight line.” etc….
Thinking about it. Thanks.
Of course publishers like Buzzfeed and Vice are suffering in terms of revenue, because they publish leftist fluff that no one would actually spend their own money to support. On the other hand publishers who provide their readers with good quality valuable content will always be able to get by with whatever business model is viable, because there will always be some proportion of the population willing to spend their own money on quality content.
Hell, run for some local political office in California. Your readers will send you donations. And, what is the biggest scam tax wise, contributions are tax free. You get a lot of name recognition as a candidate, even if you lose. After losing, maybe get hired by a consulting firm. Just saying. Wohl auf! Fuer Seine Dienst, Gott sei dank!
Wolf,
A bit late, but still wanted to share my thoughts.
First off, donations model is a dead end: it’s not scalable. Plus your content can be sold for way more. (that said: I’ve just donated :).
Now, the discussion went mostly around the 2 option you outlined, but I haven’t seen anybody talking about ABSOLUTE number of subscribers.
However, if you had 1M subscribers, I assume marketing the site would be a completely different ball game.
How to get there?
My suggestion is to try word of mouth as follows:
1. The content should be free, but with a free subscription.
2. A subscriber should be encouraged to share the site. In his book, Mark Joyner states that the most powerful reason people share is not the money. Which is very good here! I believe a lot of fans would start sharing immediately just because they think the content is worth sharing.
Subscription alone will already give at least the stats. And can be implemented quite easily and even for free with an autoresponder like Mailchimp. (Though it would cost when the subscriber count exceeds the limit)
3. Based on subscriptions, a referral system should be introduced that would provide some incentives for sharing. Say, for 5 new subscribers, you will get an ad-free version. Or something else – there are many options, need to pick the best one(s).
The main advantage of this approach is that the content would still be free for all. And even if ads are blocked for one reader, it would be compensated by multiple new ones.
Everybody agrees your content is worth a lot. 10K readers looks like a drop in the bucket. There are definitely far far more English speaking people who would definitely enjoy reading but they just don’t know about the site yet. Bottom line, I believe this does have a chance to go viral.
This site has over 200,000 unique visitors a month… let’s call them “readers.” If 5% subscribe and are willing to pay = 10,000 paying subscribers. That’s where I got the number.
Wolf,
I was NOT suggesting paid subscription
200,000 is about .7% of the population.
I’ll have to work harder to get it higher …
RD,
Unique Visitor is by definition IP address plus a further identifier (e.g. cookie). Meaning this number could be several times more than a real number of people visiting: many read on multiple device, or on the same device but from different places (IP is dynamically assigned), using different browsers or might just clean the browser cache cookies included.
Also what population are you referring to?
200K is 0.7% of around 30 M – even the USA alone has ten times more people.
Wolf,
Unique Visitor by definition = IP address + a further identifier (e.g. cookie).
This number could be several times more than a real number of people visiting:
– many use on multiple devices (home, office, mobile…)
– some may use the same device but in different places (where IP is dynamically assigned)
– people may use different browsers on the same device or browse while on VPN
– some people clean the browser cache (cookies included).
So I would divide 200K by 3. While it is a reputable number for many sites, I still insist on it being a drop in the bucket for this one.
Well, your site’s content is outstanding. And compared to a lot of sites I visit (without subscribing), the advertising is fairly unobtrusive. Thank you for doing what you do — I’m glad you feel it’s rewarding.
OMG! JUST MAKE EVERYBODY HAPPY WILL YA!
PT OFFER A $500 A YEAR COMMERCIAL FREE SERVICE — I’D ADD ON $400 F
FOR PUTTING UP WITH WHINERS.
PT OFFER A FREE COMMERCIAL SERVICE.
YOU ARE ONE OF THE BEST BUSINESS REPORTS AROUND.
I did not read through all of the comments, but I’m sure they’re al positive…
I will say……From a business owner in the central California…..Keep up what you are doing, it is truely the best read out there for financial….
I’ll shamelessly admit, even though I could easily afford it. You’re right….. My frugal self would more than likely not pay for a prescription…… even if I know deep down it’s well worth it…..lol
Cheers
Jason
You are AWESOME and we al really really REALLY appreciate it. Wolf Street is a daily go-to site for me (along with Naked Capitalism, Contrary Brinn and Truthout)
I for one would happily pay a small subscription if the ad money ever really did dry up. Your work is far to important to go away.
And I will certainly make use of the “how to donate” link. I would also suggest putting up something a little more prominent like the digital ‘tip jar’ Lambert Strether uses over at Naked Capitalism.
Hi Wolf
Je vais, rien que pour vous, désactiver mon Adblocks, afin que vous puissiez continuer a faire ce travail remarquable ( et boire quelques bières à la sante des Français qui vous lisent).
Keep on!!!!!!
Merci pour désactiver votre Adblock pour mon site. Et à tous les Français qui lisent mes trucs : « à votre santé »
Hi Wolf, I think you’re doing an excellent job and creating a lot of value with this site. My two suggestions are:
– ask for donations like The Guardian
– look into patreon
I think The Guardian is doing pretty good with donations and I’ve seen other creators focusing on social issues do well with patreon in the past.
Also, if you want to develop another project long term, you can start a kickstarter campaign. I’ve seen in the open source community people raise a fairly decent wage to develop something over a period of months.
Been coming here for years. I love the articles and I love the comments!!
I’ve got to support your decision to stay free. The ads are not intrusive.
Although I read articles from other sources via yahoo “news”, Reuters and Wolfstreet are my top 2.
As a “poor” person in the sf Bay Area (“living in parent’s basement”), Wolf’s articles about here, are great. Will housing ever become affordable in sf?
Don Quijones is great! The new contributor on the airlines is a welcome addition, especially since I discovered that the total cost of flying to other countries for a month or whatever is cheaper than staying home!
Keep up the good work, Wolf! San Francisco was built by money, from the gold rush to the technology rush.
However, another sf legacy is people who have lived and created for more than money. Too many of those people have been forced out economically. Wolf: Your decision to “keep it real” and not sell out shows that you are one of the few left.
I’ve been a follower since the “Pit” days and have no idea how I stumbled onto your wonderful site as I spend almost zero time with TV as entertainment but see the internet as the “Everything of Information”,..I used to in my early tears frequently wander aimlessly in my Main Library.
I purposely delayed my comments until late in this post and I will limit my accolade to “wonderful site” but I share totally all expressed in almost 300 comments, including all those coming in as first timers. You might have provoked more work for yourself as moderator but you may have enriched your site with those coming from the shadows regardless of their motives.
I’m sure the donations coming your way are like a February Christmas, much deserved and maybe an annual event for you and family.
Mine came at random starting after your excellent and early reporting of the Equifax disaster that was not reported or under reported in the media, a very serious breach. I probably would have donated earlier but ignored the top buttons and all the advertisements from the git go, an old developed habit from 40 years ago when I won’t notice my name in bold 1 inch print at the bottom of any page on my local newspaper, “Just the facts Ma’am”. In my old TV days I’m still amused when others would comment, wasn’t that a cute commercial and I was taking a short break in my thought and completely oblivious to the advertisement.
Your comment on this post revealed your mailing address, again oblivious to me on the top buttons, so I will sent you an extra bonus, something that I’ve shared with relatives, friends, Doctors, and twice strangers, one after fourth IPA and Ubered home.
More success forever,
Bob
ps…I thought about sending this privately but I want to send comments over the 300 mark.
pps…You can choose to keep it private and not post.
One more comment, [maybe intent on pushing the 300 mark], maybe not, my early favorite brewery was Stone. It was over the top from it’s start but it’s still for hard me not to search for that better mousetrap.
In the Bay Area, we’re surrounded by local brews so I don’t see Stone much up here (though I’m not looking for it either). But I had a Stone IPA a few times, and it was awesome!!
Wolf, have you thought about issuing some kind of “WolfCrypto” to monetize all the words? ;)
On a serious note, a little tweak of the CSS margins to give the inline ads a little breathing room might make them a little friendlier.
Also, thanks for the no-paywall thing. I turned off my ad-blocking for you bro! :)
Thanks Wolf!
You are doing the kind of independent honest no-BS, no-clickbait journalism that is needed more than ever to keep the spirit of the Internet alive, in this age of dumbed-down listicles and regurgitated “news”.
“All of which I really enjoy.”
Happiness and Enjoyment are difficult to price and frequently can not be brought.
The advertising model is dying as the adds are to intrusive aggressive and data hungry. Also loaded with spies and trackers.
PEOPLE WITH DATA CAPS OUTSIDE AMERICA CAN SIMPLY NOT SUSTAIN THE DATA CONSUMED BY PLAY VIDEO FIRST ADVERTISING PAGES.
Once peopel start using add blockers and don not track default browsers everybody suffers.
The intrusive advertisers brought this on all site operators.
WAPO = pay or take adds = dont bother to read WAPO or ever link to it.
Unless you are trying to build something you wish to sell, stay away from Paywall untill there is no choice, as you will end up working to sustain a readership, to fund the mechanism to, run the wall. Instead of doing what you enjoy and making beer money.
Congratulations, d, you posted the 300th comment on this article. This blew out all prior records (I don’t even know what they were… less than 200 probably).
I want to thank you and all other commenters here for their support and kind words.
Wolf,
Even if you decide on not going with free subscription and referrals, please at least add the sharing buttons! This should be a little effort but will definitely help.
Andrei,
I had all the sharing buttons on my site but eventually took them off once I understood what their tracking code does. The code would be installed on my site to track you across the internet. Facebook buttons are the worst. But all others do similar things — they just don’t know as much about you as Facebook does.
This tracking would be active on my site even if you don’t click on the buttons!
Wolf,
OK, but at least email sharing can be very easily done with 1 line of HTML. I just put up a sample snippet for you on my site https://www.daytradingtester.com -> see “For Wolf” in the menu
Ha, thanks. Got my own menu button on your site! I copied the snippet. You can remove me from your menu :-]
I’ll try it out, and if I cannot make it work properly, I’ll asked my developer to sink his teeth into it.
Good idea. Thanks.
My pleasure, Wolf!
This is a very new site, no traffic there yet. I decided not to include the page tag in the URL here for the search engines not to index it. (That said, I have no issues in keeping the menu item either :)
Glad you liked the idea. And reiterating on the free subscription and referrals approach – you might take a look at how we have implemented it in our software (just download any free product on the sites that are linked on the main page of https://www.daytradingtester.com. Though it may be overkill for your case, maybe it helps to provoke other ideas.
Andrei,
An “Email to a friend” link is now installed under the title of each article. My developer did it :-]
Wolf,
I see the link now – and it works for me, great!
One more idea: replicate the link at least in the beginning and the end of the comments section!
Because I believe many are like me and come multiple times having already read the article, to read the comments.
Your site is easily subscription quality, Wolf. I subscribe to Stockman and he sends me back to you almost daily. Your exacting standards set you apart.
You’re the best explainer and teacher of econ subjects, and BY FAR the best grapher. Now you’ve done the same with this subject. You got my donation.
(But the donate button was NOT clear or easy to find!)
I’m in a similar boat to you, Wolf. A one-man band software-writer, far too old for the game, yet doing surprisingly well at it.
I tried ads, they suck. I don’t even bother with them now. What works for me is a mix of some really good free stuff, and some even better paid stuff. About 98% of my visitors are never going to pay me a cent, and that’s absolutely fine so long as I can stop them from stealing my time. That took a few years to perfect. But a small percentage see the quality of my work and are happy to pay for the even better stuff. And it’s enough for me to live on. I’m not rich by any standards, but my quality of life is superb. I get to do what I love doing without working for some ah of a boss or fighting my way through traffic.
It’s the good quality free stuff that brings in the volume of visitors, and you already have that. And I’m pretty sure that a small percentage of your readers would be happy to pay for the even better stuff. It doesn’t have to be much. Start with a few small things, perhaps one special report per month for $20. If you even sell ten, it will make you a bit happier. And I guarantee you’ll sell ten. You might sell hundreds, but you won’t know unless you try.
Chris,
Same here! I removed all ads long back. How do you market your software? If you are using word of mouth, how?
Earlier, Wolf, you spoke of beer money.
It’s your misfortune to have been born about four thousand years too late.
Had you been born in Mesopotamia ca. 1,900 BC, you would have been better protected from avaricious barmaids.
Code of Hammurabi, Article 108:
“If the mistress of a beer-shop has not received corn as the price of beer or has demanded silver on an excessive scale, and has made the measure of beer less than the measure of corn, that beer-seller shall be prosecuted and drowned.”
(Translated from the Sumerian language, Knoles and Snyder “Readings in Western Civilization”, J.B. Lippincott, 1951)
It makes me quite sad to think of a world without Wolf Street, an intelligent and independent voice in a more and more co-opted world. I’ve visited your site on and off for years and appreciated being able to read pieces on issues I might never hear about anywhere else. Your authenticity and passion for your work are evident, and your sincerity and honesty are what keep me coming back. We need your voice.
Thanks Wolf. I recently discovered this site and find it very useful. After reading this article, I disabled ad-blocker extension for your site. Think you should atleast put ad-blocker detection in your site if not already and then insist that reader disable the ad-blocker to continue reading