https://marco.org/2011/03/16/the-daily-has-been-free-since-its-introduction-on
The Daily has been free since its introduction, on a “trial” basis.
Apparently the free trial will finally end next week. To keep The Daily after that, customers will need to pay $1/week or $40/year.
That’s a fair price for regularly updated content, but when people need to start paying for it, they’re going to be a lot more critical. The first question most people will ask themselves isn’t “Can I afford $1 per week?” or “Is that really a lot of money compared to everything else I spend money on every week or year?”
It’s not about the money. That’s not how people think about app purchases or upgrading from a free app to a paid app. Instead, the reasoning is more like “Do I really want this enough to pay for it?”, or worse, “Can I get rid of this without missing it?”
And I’m not sure The Daily will hold up to such a critical evaluation as well as it needs to for it to be anywhere near profitability.