“Because that’s what the market will bear — at least for now,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt writes for Fortune.
“If you buy the digital editions of Popular Science or TIME Magazine on the iPad, they cost $4.99 each — same as on the newsstand,” Elmer-DeWitt writes. “However, one-year subscriptions to Popular Science (the paper magazine) are currently selling for $12 — or $1 an issue. And TIME subscriptions can be had for $20 — around 35¢ an issue.”
“The attendees at the WeMedia conference had widely divergent opinions about the approach publishers are taking,” Elmer-DeWitt reports. “‘I like the brazenness of TIME’s $4.99 an issue,’ said Roger Black, a veteran magazine designer whose portfolio includes the logos for both TIME and Newsweek. ‘I think the TIME Magazine app is the most sinful piece of shit ever,’ said Buzzmachine’s Jeff Jarvis, a former Time Inc. editor and author of What Would Google Do? ‘The ego of it was unabashedly awful.'”
Elmer-DeWitt reports, “As for that $4.99 per-issue magazine price, it will come down in a month or so when Apple allows magazines to set up subscriptions on the iTunes store, says Popular Science’s Jannot. But it won’t come down much. He’s planning to charge $29.99 for 12 iPad issues and $19.99 for six.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If you think the prices are too high, capitalism provides a simple remedy for this: Do not buy the the magazines. Visit them for free on your iPad’s Safari browser until the publishers lower their prices. If enough people think the prices are too high and don’t buy, then prices will come down. If iPad magazine prices do not decrease, then you know that you are in the minority.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Joe J.” for the heads up.]
Who reads Time?
One only sees Time in some dentists’ offices.
MDN Take = Take action, vote with your wallet. don’t reward pigs with your hard earned cash.
I ended up paying $4.99 per issue for the iCreate mag through the iCreate App. Expensive? Yes. But considering that I’ve been paying $15.95 per issue, because it’s a UK import, $4.99 seems a right bargain!!!
does anyone even read time? That’s why the price is high– nobody will buy it print or ipad versions
Not buying magazines will only make prices go up.
However buying magazines will also make prices go up.
It’s called a business strategy.
Time Magazine – the condensed magazine for condensed people – Bob Dylan
Time is the child of the ultra-right Luce family. Time’s not worth the wood pulp it is printed on nor the electrons used to produce the digital version.
Time and Newsweek ceased to be viable/reliable news sources many, many, many years ago. Here’s to their current business model: overpriced, overhyped pap for the gullible. (And may they take the Old Gray Lady down with them.)
WTF. I paid 15.00 for a year of Time, plus got a nice free gift. I love my iPad but the MOST I will pay for the digital Time mag is 29.99 for the year!! What are they thinking????
I want to know when/if you’ll be able to buy single issues of newspapers. I rarely read print editions, but if I’m at the airport and getting on a plane, I’ll sometimes pick up a WSJ for roughly $2. Is there a way to do this now that I’m missing? It wouldn’t hurt their subscription revenue because I will NEVER subscribe since I only read WSJ 1-2 times per month at most.
These publishers are a bunch of idiots.
Old, liberal media on the fast track to extinction. YEEESSSS!
I won’t buy any magazines until the prices is reasonable, i.e. no more than half the issue price or a subscription price the same as the paper subscription price.
I bought the iPad on purpose to replace my waste paper habit. But I won’t be robbed or pay a premium to do that.
I think Apple has priced the iPad pretty reasonably. It’s time the publishers saw the writing on the wall. I will not pay the early adopter premium this time.
While publishers are raping consumers at the moment, I would think that paper versions are still cheaper due to advertising and the fact you are receiving stale news. If Time really costs 35¢ an issue by mail, then what you are paying for is postage. You also get quicker access to the stories online which may be considered a premium.
Seems to me that you get online access with a paper subscription in many cases, so get the paper subscription and read the online version. You can throw out or donate the paper copy when it comes in the mail three days after you’ve read the e version anyway.
@ HMCIV:
Sometimes things are worse.
Here in Mexico, where oil belongs to all Mexicans: when the price of oil rises, the price of gasoline goes up, reflecting higher prices. But when the oil price drops, the price of gasoline goes up, for offset the fall in prices.
What is worse?
Shit happens, sometimes®
@RIP,
With all due respect, it’s the “liberal” media. Here’s a quote from that “liberal” owner of Time, Henry Luce: “If Jack [Kennedy] turns soft on communism [i.e., backs away from the Vietnam war], Time will cut his throat.”
For the fun of it, try to find any corporate media outlet that opposed the Iraq War. Good luck, ’cause you’re gonna need it.
Dinosaur thinking usually means Dinosaur death. When will these idiots ever learn to go with the future instead of fighting it?
@Forrest, Forrest Gump
O mejor:
¡Caca pasa!
I hope no one buys any of these overpriced magazines! This was one of the reasons I wanted the iPad. I thought this would be the perfect platform for bringing forth digital magazines. I thought this would help an industry teetering on the precipice, in the face of the new media. Yet what do these idiots do? They charge as much, if not more in some cases, for the same info that already has been moneterized (sic?) via their newsstand and subscription service. If I am not getting the paper and the printing why am I being charged as such? Convienience? Sorry, not convenient enough for me at these prices. Especially not after laying out the $648 to purchase the magical device I need to consume these overpriced pieces of pixelated pulp. I don’t mind paying the same for a cheap subscription, $ .99 an issue is probably where they should be for this format. Mac|Life has a nice solution that I can live with. Give me both the print and the digital format for the same amount. I can read it online when I have to and still have the hard copy when I need it. Now of course this doesn’t intergrate seemlessly with the iPad, but I don’t care. Just give me a break! It is safe to say that I will not be purchasing any magazines on the iPad until the prices fall in line with what I feel is reasonable. I hope others do the same and the publishers take note. From the sounds of it, capitalism notwithstanding, Time and PopSci will remain oblivious. I will not hold my breath, but I
will hold my cash.
I canceled my iPad WSJ subscription and sent them a note. If they wanted that much $$$ from me, I at least wanted access on my iPhone too, and/or access to WSJ.com.
No reply. No money. No loss.
Won’t buy a book or a magazine for the iPad. $13 for a book is a joke. I talked to our library’s I.T. guy last week. He said they are getting ready to roll out the checking out of digital books. I’m looking forward to that!
I won’t pay more for a digital magazine than what I pay currently for the paper version.
Capitalism?? What’s that?
I know you fat, potato-chip-eating, mother’s-basement-living, porn-downloading, high-school-dropout idiots who post here lack any real business or economic knowledge, but there are no fixed costs for providing content on the iPad. Whether they get 1 or 1 million customers, every dollar is nearly 100% bottom line profit.
And just because none of you can read anything but what you find on the web, Time is a relevant journal for a large number of people. There have been 1 million purchases of the iPad. Maybe 5 or 6 million by the end of the year. Only a small percentage of people have to buy it to make it a huge profit center for Time.
And as for RIP’s dumb comment–you ought to appreciate pure, unadulterated capitalism. But of course, sitting in your mom’s basement makes you incapable of actually understanding it.
As for MDN, come on. You are not a journalist in making your comments. We need a free and responsible press to make this democracy work. And by free, I mean not $0, but free from government censorship, just in case you’re confused. Blogs, like this one, are not real journalism. Someone has to pay real journalists, and they need to make money. I’ll give them that.
I pay over $1000 per month to have online access to medical journals. I don’t want to get it for free, because then they will become useless as they will not have the resources to edit and peer review the best articles.
Is Time worth $4.99? Maybe. Maybe not. But, there’s an old adage in marketing. Start high and move down in pricing, because you can’t start low and move up.
People r not going to pay their ridiculous prices and soon, they will have to lower it to a acceptable level.
They r starting high and will go down from there. They themselves don’t know where to price it at, since it’s a new tech and a new way of reading.
I am willing to pay 50 cents max.
I’ve been using Zinio and most of the mag’s are a buck an issue on a year subscription. Plus it holds all the mags in one spot instead of separate app for each.