How a paid-subscription news app saved me from being sucked down the black hole of polarization and endless information.
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” says the economic proverb. Everything has a cost, and when things seem like they don’t have a cost, it is simply a cost you haven’t seen or realized. The Internet is full of content that seems free. Smartphone games, social media platforms, even Internet browsers themselves, such as Google, are all free to use.
The net worth of these companies show they are, in fact, making money. Google and Facebook are currently 11th and 46th on the Fortune 500 list, respectably. Anytime a user interacts with the internet, they are most likely engaged in some sort of give-take agreement. Google and Facebook, for example, profit primarily by selling user’s attention to advertisers.
Advertisements pervade almost every almost every function and space of the Internet to give the illusion that it is free. News services are perhaps one of the more problematic places to rely on advertisements. Even paid subscription news services typically allow users free article access without a subscription every month, and they use this opportunity to place ads in the margins of their stories.
One increasingly problematic practice is “native advertising”, which are articles that are paid for by companies without signifying that they are advertisements. It does not require much imagination to consider why blurring this line is a huge ethical concern.
However, the two problems that are really starting to have a grip on me are “shock journalism” and endless scroll features. Shock journalism has existed almost as long as journalism. News companies realized they needed to sell papers, and that “shock-value”, hyper-concerned stories achieved that end.
Endless scroll features allow the users to continue to click on one article after another with no end. Services with endless scroll retain the user's attention and keep selling them ads. The same way 24-hour news channels must speculate and exaggerate to fill time, Internet feeds must continue pushing users towards certain viewpoints, pulling them further from simple, fact-based journalism.
Enter Brief.
Brief is a paid news subscription; it costs $5.00 a month with the ability to cancel anytime. By presenting the user with a clear cost, Brief does not need to advertise or try to keep their attention. In fact, the purpose of the app is to combat the attention-centered business model of the current news cycle. Brief works to eliminate bias and save time by curating short reports of important news events.
Each article is only about a 5-minute read, offers multiple sources cited, and offers brief statements, reactions, and insight from actual professionals working in whatever field is being discussed. Once the user finishes a story, they swipe off it and it disappears. If there is nothing newsworthy to report, the app just states: “You’re all caught up!”
Although Apple, Google, and other services I regularly use offer free news applications, I have switched to paying for Brief to receive almost all of my news. Its ease of access allows me to efficiently get caught up on relevant information. Because they do not offer endless scroll, I have only ever spent about 5–15 minutes each day. By subscribing to Brief, I am not only paying for their coverage, but also paying for the knowledge that I can avoid the time-consuming, advertisement-riddled, and often obnoxious other news sources.
The real strength of the app is found in what they are not: extensive. The limited, bite-size nature allows me to only receive what I need to accomplish my task, not any extra information that will distract and waste time. Brief allows you to receive notifications, but they disappear after 24 hours, so I never have notifications piling up.
I believe that the polarized nature of our public discourse was caused, in part, by our current system of news delivery. Subscription-based services are not perfect, it seems unethical to make the ability to receive reliable information class-based. However, I think their transparent, consumer-focused design is the future of internet services and applications.
The net worth of these companies show they are, in fact, making money. Google and Facebook are currently 11th and 46th on the Fortune 500 list, respectably. Anytime a user interacts with the internet, they are most likely engaged in some sort of give-take agreement. Google and Facebook, for example, profit primarily by selling user’s attention to advertisers.
Advertisements pervade almost every almost every function and space of the Internet to give the illusion that it is free. News services are perhaps one of the more problematic places to rely on advertisements. Even paid subscription news services typically allow users free article access without a subscription every month, and they use this opportunity to place ads in the margins of their stories.
One increasingly problematic practice is “native advertising”, which are articles that are paid for by companies without signifying that they are advertisements. It does not require much imagination to consider why blurring this line is a huge ethical concern.
However, the two problems that are really starting to have a grip on me are “shock journalism” and endless scroll features. Shock journalism has existed almost as long as journalism. News companies realized they needed to sell papers, and that “shock-value”, hyper-concerned stories achieved that end.
Endless scroll features allow the users to continue to click on one article after another with no end. Services with endless scroll retain the user's attention and keep selling them ads. The same way 24-hour news channels must speculate and exaggerate to fill time, Internet feeds must continue pushing users towards certain viewpoints, pulling them further from simple, fact-based journalism.
Enter Brief.
Brief is a paid news subscription; it costs $5.00 a month with the ability to cancel anytime. By presenting the user with a clear cost, Brief does not need to advertise or try to keep their attention. In fact, the purpose of the app is to combat the attention-centered business model of the current news cycle. Brief works to eliminate bias and save time by curating short reports of important news events.
Each article is only about a 5-minute read, offers multiple sources cited, and offers brief statements, reactions, and insight from actual professionals working in whatever field is being discussed. Once the user finishes a story, they swipe off it and it disappears. If there is nothing newsworthy to report, the app just states: “You’re all caught up!”
Although Apple, Google, and other services I regularly use offer free news applications, I have switched to paying for Brief to receive almost all of my news. Its ease of access allows me to efficiently get caught up on relevant information. Because they do not offer endless scroll, I have only ever spent about 5–15 minutes each day. By subscribing to Brief, I am not only paying for their coverage, but also paying for the knowledge that I can avoid the time-consuming, advertisement-riddled, and often obnoxious other news sources.
The real strength of the app is found in what they are not: extensive. The limited, bite-size nature allows me to only receive what I need to accomplish my task, not any extra information that will distract and waste time. Brief allows you to receive notifications, but they disappear after 24 hours, so I never have notifications piling up.
I believe that the polarized nature of our public discourse was caused, in part, by our current system of news delivery. Subscription-based services are not perfect, it seems unethical to make the ability to receive reliable information class-based. However, I think their transparent, consumer-focused design is the future of internet services and applications.
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