There’s no shortage of opinions about Apple’s services-related event this week! I’ve listened to a few podcast episodes, and of course I had my own thoughts on this week’s Core Intuition and a separate blog post about News+.
My favorite discussion about News+ so far has been the latest episode of Connected. They talk about the good things Apple brings to this, but also the downsides.
Federico:
I was asked by someone on Twitter, do you plan on putting Club MacStories on Apple News+? The answer is a huge no.
Myke:
Literally every single person who subscribes to Club MacStories would cancel because they’re all users of Apple products!
Federico:
There’s always a cost to adopting a new platform. There’s a technological cost, and there’s an actual cost. And for me, it’s not worth it to rewrite my — what we do for Club MacStories for Apple News format — but it’s also not worth it to lose the money that I’m making from the service that I control.
Federico’s point here gets to the key issue with these aggregation platforms, whether it’s News+, Facebook, or the App Store. When you give up control over distribution, you also give up control over revenue. With publishing on the open web, there’s always an alternative: your own domain name and your own subscribers. (For the App Store, there’s no choice.)
Back to the episode…
Stephen:
I still don’t love how closed off News is. Like on the Mac, you just can’t get a URL to open it in a browser. You just can’t do it. You’ve got to send a text message to yourself or something. And on iOS, or really anywhere, sending content to things like Instapaper is very hit or miss. […] Apple News doesn’t play well with the web, and that’s very frustrating to me as a believer in the open web.
Myke:
We’re all worried about Spotify walling off podcasts. Well, Apple’s trying to do that to news. […] It’s probably good for consumers, but is it good for the industry? We don’t know yet.
Great episode. You should listen to the whole thing, because as I said there are some points in favor of Apple News as well, and the other announcements. But the segment I’m quoting from above was particularly good.
