this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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Deterioration of the Washington Post’s subscriber base continued on Tuesday, hours after its proprietor, Jeff Bezos, defended the decision to forgo formally endorsing a presidential candidate as part of an effort to restore trust in the media.

The publication has now shed 250,000 subscribers, or 10% of the 2.5 million customers it had before the decision was made public on Friday, according to the NPR reporter David Folkenflik.

A day earlier, 200,000 had left according to the same outlet.

The numbers are based on the number of cancellation emails that have been sent out, according to a source at the paper, though the subscriber dashboard is no longer viewable to employees.

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[–] cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 65 points 1 hour ago (1 children)
[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 29 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

He's getting exactly what he wanted; to corrupt and neuter another stronghold of journalistic integrity, and turn it into his propaganda network.

He doesn't care whether it makes money or not. He's already richer than god, makes more profit than its entire worth every single week, and if Trump wins his personal tax cuts will be in the tens of billions.

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 1 points 28 minutes ago

even so, these are people who are realizing it isn't a valuable publication tuning out because this isn't when he got what we wanted. he got that a while ago

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 15 points 1 hour ago

To him, I’m sure it’s an acceptable loss.

If Amazon Prime and AWS cancellations hit a significant level over this, that would have more of an impact.

[–] goldteeth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 52 minutes ago

So not only has he quite literally decimated their readerbase but he's also made every other newspaper run the story that they were going to endorse Harris anyway, instead of likely just limiting that information to the handful of Washington Post subscribers that cared enough to check. Great quash, Jeff, you really shut that one down.

[–] spacemanspiffy@lemmy.world 17 points 1 hour ago

Finally some good fucking news.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 9 points 54 minutes ago* (last edited 53 minutes ago) (3 children)

I have commented how that decision led me to cancel my WaPo subscription which then snowballed into cancellations of Audible, Kindle Unlimited, Prime Video (ad-less), Amazon Photos, etc. Today I was chatting with my wife and she has now discarded the idea of using Blue Origin's satellite based internet access over Starlink. That's fifteen mobile response units where Jeff's space junk won't be considered.

[–] Lauchs@lemmy.world 5 points 39 minutes ago (1 children)

Isn't Starlink Musk's outfit?

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 2 points 28 minutes ago* (last edited 18 minutes ago)

Yes, and we are desperate to ditch it. The idea was to switch to ~~Blue Origin~~ Amazon's Project Kuiper as soon as it became available. Now it's fucked if we do and fucked if we don't.

That said, fourteen of the Starlink units are suspended until needed, which means no monthly payments.

EDIT: I mistakenly called the satellite project Blue Origin.

[–] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 3 points 27 minutes ago (1 children)

Blue Origin isn't planning any satellite internet projects.

There is Amazon's Project Kuiper, which aims to bring Starlink-like Internet using a constellation of 3,000 satellites, but currently they have zero satellites in orbit (and the two prototypes they launched were ULA launches).

If/when Kuiper matures, Bezos owns less of Amazon than Musk owns of SpaceX, so if your goal is to keep as little of your money out of these men's hands as you can, Kuiper might be the way to go.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 1 points 26 minutes ago* (last edited 20 minutes ago)

Great information, thank you. My use of the Blue Origin name is my mistake. Regardless, the original goal was to ditch Starlink. Hopefully we will be able to do so.

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 1 points 12 minutes ago (1 children)

Wait… your wife is ditching Kupier, which doesn’t exist yet, because of a single stunt Bezos pulled, but Starlink, run by the guy funding Trump’s election campaign, is still in the running?

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 minutes ago

Ditching the idea of transitioning to Kupier once available, yes. For now, most of the units are suspended (zero cost) until needed. My hope is that other options become available.

[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 11 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

should be paired with Amazon Prime cancelation for the double punch

[–] mercano@lemmy.world 4 points 53 minutes ago

So not only do they loose the direct revenue from the subscribers, but because the readership has fallen significantly & publicly, advertisement revenue is going to fall, too, as the advertisers know the paper isn’t reaching as many readers.

[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 hour ago

bleed some more, bozo, and wapo will drop from 3rd to 4th (print circulation probably already has) largest, behind usa today

[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Sadly, that's chump change for him. 250k sub's at $120/yr comes out to $30M/yr. That's ~ 0.015% of his net wealth. Better than nothing though.

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 13 points 1 hour ago

I believe that the main reason for people as wealthy as him to own newspapers is not the money, it's the influence. This does hurt that

[–] ohellidk@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago

let's gooooo!!

The Guardian - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)Information for The Guardian:

Wiki: reliable - There is consensus that The Guardian is generally reliable. The Guardian's op-eds should be handled with WP:RSOPINION. Some editors believe The Guardian is biased or opinionated for politics. See also: The Guardian blogs.
Wiki: mixed - Most editors say that The Guardian blogs should be treated as newspaper blogs or opinion pieces due to reduced editorial oversight. Check the bottom of the article for a "blogposts" tag to determine whether the page is a blog post or a non-blog article. See also: The Guardian.


MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United Kingdom


Media Bias/Fact Check - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)Information for Media Bias/Fact Check:

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MBFC: Least Biased - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: Very High - United States of America


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[–] Zier@fedia.io 0 points 1 hour ago

That is an annual loss of $30 million. ha ha