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Apple CEO Tim Cook alluded to more services coming this year, and this week we're learning more about what the company has in store for news. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Apple has been in talks with publishers about a subscription news service that would be a new paid tier of its existing Apple News app. However, the company has been butting heads with publishers over monetary details—Apple reportedly wants to keep 50 percent of subscription revenue from the service.
[...] In addition, Apple wouldn't share customer data with publishers. Information including credit card numbers and email addresses would not be provided to publishers if they agreed to Apple's terms as they currently stand. That information can be crucial for publishers to grow their subscriber base, market new products to readers, and more.
Will news publishers take half of the subscription revenue and forego money from customer profiling and tracking?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday February 14 2019, @11:04AM
The best way to obtain customer data is to obtain it yourself, through direct product sales.
If someone bough QuickLetter from Working Software, quite likely they'd order Spellswell or even FindsWell from our quarterly
junk mailnewsletter.The tough part was growing our registered user list, so that we'd have their names and postal addresses. We never moved many products through retail stores or through mail order catalogs.
To grow our list, we'd "Rent Names" FROM OUR DIRECT COMPETITORS then "drop tests" of one hundred "pieces" each, testing lists from different software publishers, magazines and other Customer Data Collectors, as well as varying the wording, color and typeface of the text on the outside of the envelope, the cover letter text and the offer price.
Once we had a single test drop that produced a profit - typically just a dollar or two - we'd drop that same combo of text and the like for a thousand pieces.
Then ten thousand.
Our very largest _single_ drop was a quarter million pieces. That year we grossed three million.
Consider that Apple does not permit one to do that kind with thing through either the macOS or the iOS App Stores. I expect Google doesn't permit it through Play either.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]