Is there such a thing as an online service that, for a fee, allows access to a variety of magazines and newspapers? I’m finding that more and more online media has subscription limitations (eg “you’ve just read your last free article this month; if you want to read more please subscribe…”). While I have absolutely no problem with media requiring money, I don’t want to have a bunch of stand-alone subscriptions to a bunch of things I might just dip into a few times a month.
A few years ago, on Canadian TV, there were a couple of ads for what I believe was a service that would allow access to a variety of magazines but I haven’t seen that ad in some time. I also have no recollection of the service’s name. For Cdn dopers, one ad had a couple reading in bed and the headboard was a magazine rack, with the wife climbing over her husband to retrieve one. Another ad showed someone tugging a shelf of magazines through an airport. In both cases if you bought into this service you wouldn’t need to do this etc.
I enjoy the Atlantic, the New York Times, and the WaPo, and I enjoy checking New Yorker cartoons, but I’m not going to get subscriptions to all of them but I would gladly pay something for limited access to all of them.
Do any of you know of such a product/service? Thanks
Apple News Plus scratches that itch for me. Many of the magazines I had previously been subscribing to separately are all included in the single monthly fee.
The author’s (Roger Fingas) conclusion is that Amazon Kindle Unlimited is the best option. TBH I don’t know if any of the above were the one advertised in my initial post and the article will definitely give me a good starting point.
I didn’t know such a thing existed; and will have to look into it. The thing that’s been frustrating me about subscription news is exactly that I can’t afford to subscribe to multiple news sources individually, but it’s multiple news sources that I want to be able to read.
I use Apple News Plus, (Canada Version). Apple slightly customizes the app offering for every country they offer it with more local content.
The Canada version has about 130 magazines, plus access to about 2 years of back issues. Back issues vary by magazine, some offer more than 2 years, some less. The magazines are full issues, basically pdfs of the print version, ads and all.
Additionally you get access to daily newspapers editions. That’s good, but not quite as good as the magazines. The newspapers don’t offer full access, it’s only a subset of their content. But it does have a lot of newspapers and between them all, you get all the news you could possibly digest.
I’ve had it since it launched and couldn’t be happier.
Apple offers a free three month trial for Apple News, well worth it.
The various sites mentioned all tout the number of magazines they carry, up in the thousands. But a closer examination shows they have about a half dozen recognizable names in each category and are missing several others as important. The other thousands are filled with specialty and foreign language magazines.
They could be a good deal for some people, nevertheless. Each of us will have our own individual wants and needs. But none I looked at scratched my itch, so to speak.