News Introducing the Tom’s Hardware Premium Beta: Exclusive content for members

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Seems like a decent news membership, although, if 69 dollars is the introductory annual price, I can only assume 80-120 is the normal annual price. At 69 it seems like it could be a decent deal considering the exclusives and new tool. At 100 or more per year, it may be a hard ask for the casual hardware news consumers considering there are plenty of other sites that do top to bottom, no stone left unturned, type reviews for free. Does the membership also reduce advertisements? I will probably try it out and see how it goes, its the least I can do after using this site and forums for over a decade.
 
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@helper800 Hey, thanks for supporting TH and being a long-standing member of the community, first and foremost.

Pricing and other benefits are something that we're going to continue to think about and refine as time goes on. We've got tonnes of ideas and new features in the pipeline. This is just the beginning of what we aim to achieve with Tom's Hardware Premium.

There's also a direct feedback form to help us understand what subscribers want. If you end up subbing, we're keen to hear your thoughts.
 
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Amdlova said:
Tom's hardware have a global market... The price need to set like steam some countries cheaper than other ones 100$ for me it's anual cost of netflix - amazon and another stream...
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The content that is normally here for free with remain according the the director of Future, so even if you cannot pay for the premium, you will still get what you have always gotten. Global regional pricing is also a decent suggestion, though hard to pull off well or without any exploits.
 
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elforeign said:
end-game capitalism. Soon, you'll have to pay for Edge to open. To do a Google Query. Soon, the power button on your case will become paywalled.
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No. You are actually more closely remarking on the meme of Libertarianism, if anything. End-game capitalism is a free and fair market with reasonable regulations. Nobody is forcing you to pay for a subscription.
 
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elforeign said:
end-game capitalism. Soon, you'll have to pay for Edge to open. To do a Google Query. Soon, the power button on your case will become paywalled.
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Most news sites have leaned into subscription territory because it's a hard sector to make money in and remain afloat, especially with traditional news and TV being outpaced by social media. People don't work for free, and you shouldn't feel so entitled as to think they should, especially for you. Look at Jared leaving, for instance. He'd been here for quite a while, but the pay was unsustainable. As long as the majority of the important news remains intact, why does it matter?
 
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helper800 said:
The content that is normally here for free with remain according the the director of Future, so even if you cannot pay for the premium, you will still get what you have always gotten. Global regional pricing is also a decent suggestion, though hard to pull off well or without any exploits.
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I think what he means is that 100 dollars could be a very large sum of money in other countries because of currency exchange rates, so one way to reach users worldwide would be to offer subscriptions in local currency, at reasonable values for the reality of the country. I also think it won't happen, considering news here are mostly targeted at regions with dollar or euro. It would indeed be nice, though.
 
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salgado18 said:
I think what he means is that 100 dollars could be a very large sum of money in other countries because of currency exchange rates, so one way to reach users worldwide would be to offer subscriptions in local currency, at reasonable values for the reality of the country. I also think it won't happen, considering news here are mostly targeted at regions with dollar or euro. It would indeed be nice, though.
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You are describing global regional pricing like I said in the quoted message.
 
Admin said:
The same Tom’s Hardware you know, with deeper insights and a new tool


Introducing the Tom’s Hardware Premium Beta: Exclusive content for members : Read more
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Sigh…

Knowing the overall ownership of TH, this will only be the thin end of the wedge to come.

Clearly the shockingly disruptive nature of adverts on webpages that have shepherded people on to adblockers has created an environment where TH et al simply can’t sustain the profit desires of their owners.

Partial blame obviously lies with those of us with adblockers, but at least an equal share lies with the carpetbomb approach of the advertising that drove us away in the first place.

I couldn’t find any mention of whether the premium TH would be advert-free, and this does actually concern me. If I have missed it, then I would gladly be corrected, but to pay extra for something we mostly received for free (with advertorial warts) and yet still receive the advertorial warts would seem like a fabulous incentive for a competitor…?

I don’t like this idea of paywalling and I don’t believe that a time won’t come when all of the relevant TH content is behind the paywall. I don’t blame the staff of TH for this: far, far from it. I reserve my cynicism for the overall ownership and their desire to increase profit for shareholders.

TH is a useful resource with a value. Marketing departments have mostly poisoned websites with indiscriminate and disruptive advertising to render it almost entirely non-effective, so now they turn to this next method.

If I believed that overall ownership had learnt from the way website advertising has failed then I may have a more positive outlook for the future, but I I don’t, so I won’t.

Even if this ‘trial’ proves to be a success, the outcome is a greater movement of content behind the paywall, as it will have been proven to ‘work’ and provide shareholder benefit. If it doesn’t work, then one of two things will happen: the funding for TH from above will dry up, or more content will move behind the paywall anyway to coerce/incentivise users to take up subscriptions…

I support TH, but not their overall ownership.
 
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I am afraid your pricing is completely detached from reality.

Ars Technica $25/year (no ads)
The Verge $50/year ("Fewer, better ads")
Washington Post $40/year (1st year deal)
New York Times $4/moth (6 month deal)

I have been reading Tom's Hardware for well over a decade but there is NO WAY it is worth $69/year to me.

I agree that paywalls are better than advertising and are a necessary thing for any media site in the coming AI-slop apocalypse, but you need to be realistic in your pricing.
 
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I remember PCPlus, used to be quite thick but not as thick as Computer Shopper. Lots of useful ads for the time, good articles and the ads were easy to skip, just turn the page.
Basically at that time I was buying an advertising directory with a decent number of articles to pad out the space between the ads.

The internet spelled the end for many good paper publications. Convenience and cost destroyed the market for PCPlus. Toms and Anandtech were 2 of many sites that provided interesting viewpoints on hardware. So few remain.
The hardware has pretty much standardised on 5% to 15% performance improvement with similar features within generational updates. Unless there is a new architecture, e.g. Bulldozer to Ryzen, you can pretty much forget the words and just look at the pictures.

I used to look at SemiAccurate, entertaining and occasionally informative. It paywalled. I don’t miss it. Hopefully Toms will at least maintain its current standards for free content.

With regards to charges etc etc I refer you to Black Mirror, series 7, episode 1, Common People. Please don’t slide down a similar path.
 
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TOM's AI: We have been posting poor quality stuff the past few years lately, but don't worry, you can now pay us more so that hopefully we might increase the quality...just a little.

or....

We pay them, so that they can pay X and Elon, so that they can repost more useless crap from X, which will then be picked up by other outlets and reposted anyway....
 
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Yeah, the price is out of touch with reality

TH is one of the few tech sites that I would agree to pay for, as long as the price stays reasonable, but 69 is not.

Actually, I think you should get inspiration from the Ars offer (you don't need to get so cheap, but I guess less than 50 to get a good amount of people ready to sub), it also brings a few quality of life improvements that are really appreciable (and that probably didn't take long to implement).

Better get a 5000 subscribers who pay 30-40 than 100 subscribers who are ready to pay 69 or more.
 
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This is a hard sell, to say the least.

I've been with THW since the early days when Tom actually owned and wrote articles in here in the 90s and I've always appreciated the in-depth articles we got from time to time with interesting topics which revolve around tech. It wasn't just the new big piece of hardware like a GPU or CPU, but sound cards with interesting data in them, thermal paste and a few other things which were interesting for sure. The forums have always been a great complement as well, since there's a lot of great and knowledgeable people lurking and helping.

So, where am I going with this? The problem with this monetisation is not so much that it exists, but the "additionals" miss the mark in some key areas:
1- Article variety. Sorry to say, but you are now barely doing any in-depth content, if at all. The Pi stuff and 3D printing is neat and all, but... What about everything else? Sounds to me the "interesting" stuff will now be paywalled. That'll just make people turn around and look elsewhere.
2- Curation of news and, perhaps, articles themselves. Accuracy and integrity of the information should and must always come first.
3- More reviews of things be front and center. Where are the laptop, monitor, motherboard reviews nowadays? I have to search for reviews to actually find them. Why?
4- Obcene page cluttering. There's zero mention to removing ALL advertising from a Premium sub. While I put it last, this is the biggest point for me personally. Your page is barely readable without an adblocker. Hell.
5- I've said this a few times, but... You need to integrate your YouTube channel into the articles and the main page MORE. The written media is not dead, but do not ignore a huge chunk of potential audience. Think on how to make it work. Jarred and Paul were doing a great job, but these things take time to grow and need investment. It feels to me they never got the backing needed to make the channel grow, which is sad. Also, the Discord could use some love and publicity as well. Another medium you guys are in, but it's very slow transit. And I'm even in the Steam TH Group! But yeah, I won't say to grow that, haha. Who knows? Maybe game articles could be part of your menu, from the perspective of performance analysis.

Overall, while I do appreciate the new things you're offering and, I'd imagine, this would be the first step into making more things for the site... It does not seem right to me. The price/cost is not reflected in the potential value I'd get, which is super sad for me to say.

This is a "beta" thing, so there's a chance you'll get good information from this and see where you need to make adjustments, hopefully for the better (yes, my view of "better") and keep the original idea of THW alive: "hardware for tech enthusiasts".

Regards.
 
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I've been reading Tom's off and on since about 1998. I've been disappointed by the lack of in-depth pieces, in recent years. Things like deep dives, interviews, scaling & efficiency tests, detailed tests of cooling products like PTM and Graphene sheets, etc.

However, I did note the management change, and it definitely seems like a positive sign. So, I'd be willing to chip in with my subscription fee and see if the new management can try and revive some of the old magic that made this a Go-To resource on the web.

Good luck, Toms staff. Here's hoping you can turn things around! You know I'll be in the comments, providing the same constructive feedback as always.
: )
 
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bit_user said:
I've been reading Tom's off and on since about 1998. I've been disappointed by the lack of in-depth pieces, in recent years. Things like deep dives, interviews, scaling & efficiency tests, detailed tests of cooling products like PTM and Graphene sheets, etc.

However, I did note the management change, and it definitely seems like a positive sign. So, I'd be willing to chip in with my subscription fee and see if the new management can try and revive some of the old magic that made this a Go-To resource on the web.

Good luck, Toms staff. Here's hoping you can turn things around! You know I'll be in the comments, providing the same constructive feedback as always.
: )
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That kind of begs the question, will the premium articles, et cetera, have a comments section? If they do will non-premium members have a place to comment? If so, what could they comment on besides the title of the article? Will there truly be no comments section for premium articles? 🤔🤔🤔
 
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