I’ve noted this before, but it bears repeating: When a site depends on advertising, the audience is the product. That creates an icky incentive structure that disrespects readers as the publication packages them up for resale. It’s gross.
When a publication depends on reader support, not advertising, the site is the product. We have to be more responsive and attuned to your needs. That fills me with joy, as the question around business decisions shifts to “will this make our readers happy.”
A Daily Kos subscription has cost $40 for at least 15 years, maybe longer, but on Dec. 2, Daily Kos subscription pricing is going up to $60, and even that is an interim step to $90 in the new year. I’d rather you guys lock in for $40 for another year. If you have an existing subscription, you can extend it another 12 months at that same $40 rate.
With a subscription, you get an ad-free experience (worth the cost on its own), and we are planning on additional perks in the coming year (we are very open to suggestions). Meanwhile, we have been hard at work making the user experience better for all. For example, we’ve already been removing ad units from the free site and reducing the number of emails (and fundraising asks). It is important that Daily Kos remain accessible and pleasant for all visitors.
After the election, traffic from longtime visitors has dropped off a bit, as people are understandably exhausted from all the Trump-related drama of the past decade. People deserve time off to recharge. That isn’t surprising.
This is: We are experiencing a dramatic increase in new traffic and new signups. There are people out there looking for community who are just now finding Daily Kos. So yes, streamlining the site and making it more pleasant to use is critically important to us.
Your subscription support helps make all that possible, as well as building out our newsroom. In a year of aggressive cost-cutting and company restructuring, the newsroom avoided cuts and, in fact, we’re staffing it up. And we’ve built out an administrative team that will give me the time and space to write more. I know you guys like it when I write, and I like it when I write. It’ll look different than 2016, but I’ll be fiercely resisting alongside the rest of the Daily Kos team.
And of course, we’re not backed by billionaires. In this current climate, that is clearly a net positive, but it does put the onus on all of us who value what Daily Kos offers to keep this place going.
So please subscribe today! Let’s make this place 100% reader supported! I want you and only you to be my boss. You can also donate subscriptions to your favorite community members. It’s a great feeling to both give and receive.
I truly love and appreciate you all. However you decide to show up, you are doing the hard, long-term work of saving our democracy.
