Marco Arment Quotes

We realized the best way to monetize content was through a subscription model.

We want to give our audiences flexibility in the way they're commercially engaged in the content.

The question I ask myself is what would have happened if newspapers hadn't initially given their content away for free on the Internet. It's so hard to get people to pay once they are accustomed to having something for free.

If money can't be made reporting and writing articles, then professionals simply can't do it anymore. Unless we adopt the position that the amateur blogosphere is really capable of taking on the role that the 'New York Times' and CNN play, then we do need solutions for paying for content.

I always tell people there's only one trick to writing: You have to write something that people are willing to pay money to read. It doesn't have to be very good, necessarily, but somebody, somewhere, has got to be willing to pay money for it.

Hard paywalls will never work because, just like at a newsstand, the reader likes to browse the cover and a few articles before choosing to buy. Even if the material is truly unique, a consumer likes to try a little before buying.

I think, at the end of the day, Stockhouse will have free services supported by advertising, but we'll also have a number of subscription services.

I am essentially a hack, a commercial person. If I had a hobby, I would immediately make money on it or abandon it.

I don't think Hollywood will be the place that innovates great technology, but if people underestimate how they monetize content, they're sorely mistaken.

People who don't want to give a creator money are never going to give a creator money.

We live in a world with "free" content, and this freedom is not an imperfection. We listen to the radio without paying for the songs we hear; we hear friends humming tunes that they have not licensed. We tell jokes that reference movie plots without the permission of the directors. We read our children books, borrowed from a library, without paying the original copyright holder for the performance rights.

To estimate the value of Newton's discoveries, or the delight communicated by Shakespeare and Milton, by the price at which their works have sold, would be but a poor measure of the degree in which they have elevated and enchanted their country; nor would it be less groveling and incongruous to estimate the benefit which the country has derived from the Revolution of 1688, by the pay of the soldiers, and all other payments concerned in effecting it.

The TV Everywhere structure is good for all cable, satellite, and telephone distributors. It's good for all networks. It's good for studios that sell to networks, so it's basically good for everybody on the business side.

Once we were a part of Equity, we were able to get a salary, and then because we were employing ourselves, we just made sure we were always working. We put in hours to get subscribers. We used to do little shows at rich peoples' houses to get them to give us money.

The idea that content is king has long rested on the notion that distribution - in whatever form it takes - is a low-margin commodity, and the biggest share of profits flows to the creators of original programming, who can sell to the highest bidder.

Look at music like gaming. You monetize the game to all the people who are most engaged. I wanted to bring that theory and thinking to music.

As both a consumer and producer of newspaper articles, I have no beef with pay walls. But before signing up, I read the fine print.

I couldn't sell water in a desert. I have no business acumen. I can tell you why you have no business acumen, and I can tell you why your project may or may not work, but I have no ability to make money.

All of the business of selling apps and selling subscriptions is extremely cruelly misunderstood, including by me.

You have to figure out some way of making money without relying on video ads or people paying to download.

I pay my rent with my Instagram.

Try to imagine if all the Premier League games were now available, easily accessed by match or by season or by team via Amazon or Netflix. The audience could be much bigger. The single price per client could be lower; the total amount would still be bigger.

Asian online games are far ahead of Western games in terms of business model, but the Western games do have a real advantage in terms of production values.

There are lots of ways to monetize. But if you have millions of fans, and you can convert even five percent of them to pay for something of yours, you are in the seven-figure range.

Elsevier operates by racket: if you do not send money, you will not read any papers. On my website, any person can read as many papers as they want for free, and sending donations is their free will. Why Elsevier cannot work like this, I wonder?