An Open Letter to Online Subscription Sites

Dear Sirs:

Thank you for the opportunity to enjoy your free website / newsletter / social-media platform / app.

I find its content to be enjoyable / informative / amusing / life-changing, and was looking forward to enjoying it indefinitely at no cost to me personally. However, I was surprised and slightly concerned by a recent trend on your platform: suggestions that I should join your club / become a member / pay for additional access / join your Patreon / support you financially.

Really now, sirs, this is rather unseemly. Do you honestly believe that, after offering me worthwhile content at zero cost for mere months / years, you now expect me to help support your efforts / make your enterprise financially viable / allow you to pay your volunteers / help you offset the debt you incurred to start this venture?

Honestly.

Not only that, but I’m further alarmed by that fact that you are now limiting how much content I can download / receive by email / view on your site. After all these months / years spent giving you my minimal / half-hearted / devoted support, you are now putting the screws to your loyal readers / subscribers / listeners. And for what? A few measly dollars a month? Are you so petty, sirs?

I have been a loyal supporter, sirs. Not with actual dollars, naturally, but through my social media support–all my many clicks, likes, shares, and retweets. That’s valuable currency in this day and age, and I think should be more than sufficent payment in exchange for full and unrestricted access to your entire library of digital content, despite my infrequent and distracted use of it. Yet here I am, in digital West Berlin as it were, on the other side of your infernal paywall.

At any rate, I am writing to inform you that while I will not be supporting your art financially in any meaningful fashion, I am nevertheless quite disappointed that you have decided to sell out your principles and ask for remuneration in order to feed your family / provide healthcare for your children / pay off your crippling student debt / finally achieve your dreams of being a creative professional.

It’s people like you that give a bad name to the creative arts. For shame, sirs! For shame!

Regretfully yours,

–Most People on the Internet

NB: I will still be subscribing to your free newsletter / podcast / blog for the immediate future, but I expect you to keep providing the same level of content output as before. Otherwise, I may have to snark about you on Twitter. Neither of us want that.