The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum » Toronto Star Officially Launches "Stingy" Paywall

RadioActive · June 29, 2018 8:23 am

We knew it was coming and now it's here - the Toronto Star officially launched its paywall on Friday. Unlike its competitors, the Star is offering readers only 5 free stories a month - not the usual 10 the others give.

For now, the paywall is just to get you used to the idea. If you sign up, you get full your access back temporarily. How long that will last isn't clear, but the paper is obviously trying to put together a database it can use to plead for online subscriptions when it goes pay-per-view full time.

Current subscribers will get full access, but it's not immediately apparent if that applies to those who only take the Saturday or Sunday paper. And it's also not clear yet if going into so-called incognito mode will allow would-be freeloaders to get unlimited access without paying.

Full details here.

The timing is interesting - right before a summer long weekend, when news is often pretty sparse. It marks the final major Toronto newspaper to insist on payment for its online offerings. So far, it doesn't seem to have helped others much. Postmedia just announced another round of cuts. And The Star has also laid off 21 more people.

It's also worth noting that the Star has gone this route before but ultimately removed the barrier when traffic went down and too few people paid up. But clearly Torstar, like other print media, is in trouble and something had to give. In this case, they hope it's your contact information - and eventually, your money.

Peter the K · June 29, 2018 2:05 pm

Well, at least this time they seem to have defeated the "incognito mode" trick on chrome.

That gives me yet another reason not to read the star. Oh Well.

I still can't understand why newspapers just make a full pdf (including ads) available for download? When it comes right down to it, paid circulation isn't how newspapers generate the bulk of their income. As long as there are eyeballs reading the ads, everyone should be happy.

Last edited by Peter the K (June 29, 2018 2:08 pm)

RadioActive · June 29, 2018 8:33 pm

I sent an email off to the Star on Friday to try to get an idea of what they're planning. Their response leaves me more in the dark than ever.

"Please be informed that the account you’ve set up for your print subscription is separate from your account for thestar.com." it reads.

Then later, "Please be advised that as you are a Home Delivery subscriber you can replica/e-edition of Toronto Star which is same as the print edition of the newspaper and the link is torontostar.newspaperdirect.com."

"Please be advised that currently thestar.com website is free of cost. In future, if there are any charges, we will notify you."

O.K. so what, exactly, does that mean? It sounds like they may be planning to charge separately for an online subscription even if you already get the paper. That would be insane, and likely would irritate those who currently pay the freight for their journalism. Plus, I'm still not sure if a weekend only person is eligible to be included either way.

I've asked for clarification and hope they respond again. To no one's surprise, they added that they've been "experiencing [a] high volume" of correspondence, as they attempt to convince online readers to eventually pay for what they've been getting free for years.

This thing has disaster written all over it. For an entity that's made a reputation - indeed, was founded on the principle of being "the paper for the people," and is supposed to be written for clarity - I still have no idea what they're doing.

And now I wonder if they do, either

Retaw · June 29, 2018 9:35 pm

Their paywall is pretty easy to defeat. If I ever want to read unhinged articles about how I'm racist for existing from someone with a criminal record, I guess I know what to do ...

Peter the K · June 30, 2018 1:21 am

Retaw wrote:
Their paywall is pretty easy to defeat. If I ever want to read unhinged articles about how I'm racist for existing from someone with a criminal record, I guess I know what to do ...

For the benefit of those of who might be forced to read an occasional article from the red star, could you elaborate on this easy method to defeat the paywall?

Lorne · June 30, 2018 7:36 am

RadioActive wrote:
It sounds like they may be planning to charge separately for an online subscription even if you already get the paper.

I wondered about that as well. I don't know how much that this is done, but I'm a Consumer Reports subscriber and that's what they do. When I want to pass along an article to someone I just scan it instead, but it does bother me that they don't provide online access to subscribers. It would be interesting to know how many print subscribers are willing to pay for online access as well ... my guess would be that it's very few.

betaylored · June 30, 2018 2:06 pm

Peter the K wrote:
Retaw wrote:
Their paywall is pretty easy to defeat. If I ever want to read unhinged articles about how I'm racist for existing from someone with a criminal record, I guess I know what to do ...
For the benefit of those of who might be forced to read an occasional article from the red star, could you elaborate on this easy method to defeat the paywall?

Thanks Peter the K, good idea, I would love to know how to clear the cookies, I believe that's the term... I enjoy some of their articles, plus the free New Yorker and New York Times articles offered are never enough.

Peter the K · June 30, 2018 3:26 pm

I don't it's as simple as clearing cookies. I went into incognito mode in Chrome yesterday, looked at 7 stories and then was told to sign up or go away. Ok. Fine.

Normally, all you have to do is close incognito mode, restart it and bingo, but this time, it remembered that I had seen my 7 stories.

So it's a little deeper than just cookies.

Lorne · June 30, 2018 4:14 pm

I also use Chrome, but I found by switching to Edge's InPrivate window earlier that I got another set of articles to work with ... just 5, though. Having said that, your overall point is certainly correct.

June 30, 2018 5:42 pm

iPad. Safari. Constantly Clear History and Website Data. I find I can download one, sometimes two, articles daily at the Washington Post. If it works for you at Torstar, Bob's yer uncle.

On our PCs, an app called CleanUp! then restart to keep things lean and clean.

cGrant · June 30, 2018 5:49 pm

While I am not immune to using backchannels from time to time, I find it interesting that the posters in this thread don't believe in paying reporters (and other paper employees) a fair wage via effectively stealing their product. Yet, countless threads here moan about radio employees not getting paid fairly. If there was someway of similarly stealing radio product, who you also be in favour of using tricks, bypasses and filters? Or is radio somehow insulted from such malfeasance?

(All this said, I do not like the Red Czar and their POV. Nor do I care if the paper industry goes tits-up)

RadioActive · June 30, 2018 10:27 pm

RadioActive wrote:
It sounds like they may be planning to charge separately for an online subscription even if you already get the paper. That would be insane, and likely would irritate those who currently pay the freight for their journalism.

So I finally got an answer to my query and it now sounds like subscribers will get access to the online site - but not all of it. Here's what they said:

"The Star will be launching a digital subscription service to thestar.com later this year.

Visitors to thestar.com will continue to receive a limited number of complimentary articles, and will then be invited to become a Star subscriber.

Please note that Toronto Star print and e-paper subscribers will get free access to all content on thestar.com except for “premium” content such as articles provided by the Wall Street Journal."

So if I read that right, unless you give them money not only for the printed paper but also the Internet version, you won't be able to see everything. Hence their deal with the Wall St. Journal for business news. Since most of what's on the WSJ doesn't really interest me, I won't miss it.

The Globe and Mail currently does this kind of thing, where the site is mostly free but there are restricted articles which they also call "premium content." And you're not allowed to see those unless you pony up the money for them.

My only other questions: if this doesn't work, will more and more of its online content suddenly become "premium content," requiring ever more escalating subscription funds? And if that happens, how long before they make it free again when they lose all those eyeballs?

(By the way, I fixed up that excerpt from the email above, which had several grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in it. I suspect they've farmed this out to a firm overseas in India and the result is not a good look for a newspaper where spelling and phrasing counts.)

July 1, 2018 5:59 pm

Torstar wrote:
Please note that Toronto Star print and e-paper subscribers will get free access to all content on thestar.com except for “premium” content such as articles provided by the Wall Street Journal."

As 7-day Star subscribers who also kick in for the Burlington Post monthly, we can probably live without the star.com if they go crazy slugging all sorts of stuff "premium."
The Star keeps getting thinner but we'll keep buying the hard copy until it's no longer worth it. At that point, we'll get something online free.
Right now, we read the Star from front to back but the Wall Street Journal additions are sort of...meh.

Plate Voltage · July 1, 2018 6:12 pm

So, I did some testing and the paywall is quite persistent in addition to being stingy. Not only does it count down your articles, it persists after clearing out the cache, cookies, and browsing data in your browser. It also persists across multiple browsers on the same system. I tried on both a Mac and a PC and used up the five articles in Safari and then tried in Chrome and Firefox and the count jumped right up to 5/5 despite those browsers never visiting thestar.com. I did the same thing on the PC and just to be absolutely certain, I fired up Internet Explorer which I haven't used in years. Sure enough, the counter jumped to 5/5 immediately. I haven't figured out how they're doing it yet but the fact that the paywall mechanism clearly isn't confined to the browser you're using, which raises some pretty serious privacy and security concerns in my mind.

RadioActive · July 1, 2018 8:43 pm

Although I've logged in under my account, just for interest sake, I tried the incognito mode on Chrome.

It didn't recognize that I was already signed in and it told me I had only 5 more stories to go. So it's not like it retained my cookies or login info on the regular browser and the fact I was technically already in the system.

Lorne · July 1, 2018 9:52 pm

Yes, that's exactly the same as what I've found.

July 2, 2018 3:14 pm

While looking around for reaction to the Star's latest paywall, this popped up on The Walrus. It's lengthy, well-written with some rather discouraging insight.

They used to pave paradise and put up a parking lot, now they take that parking lot and put up another condo.

https://thewalrus.ca/inside-the-toronto-stars-bold-plan-to-save-itself/

betaylored · July 2, 2018 10:42 pm

To have a successful paywall, you have to have something you can't find anywhere else behind that paywall.

The only unique, can't find this anywhere else group of journalists that I would be most inclined to pay money to read, are those who make up "The Athletic".

They have some of the strongest, most qualified sports people on their roster, though in the past they've been hockey stick between the legs aggressive when it comes to allowing you to read more than a few sentences of their content unless you become a subscriber.

They currently have a free seven day trial. This free trial over a period of time seems to be a far smarter way to get readers to buy in, literally, to your content. Has anyone else gone the trial period instead of a few free articles route?

I have no idea if the business model of a free seven day trial period is more successful than a set amount of free articles per month. Wonder which works better.

Last edited by betaylored (July 3, 2018 1:34 am)