Announcement Introducing the Tom's Hardware Premium Beta!

[LordVile]

Honestly I don’t really read articles from Toms I just use the forums. I find component testing from Techspot and GN to be more in depth so I go there. However the pricing is way too high especially with no promise of advertising on the subscribed tier. 5 a month or 40 for the year seems more reasonable.

 

[txfeinbergs]

It looks like there are a LOT of "premium" only articles today, most of which are the same type of articles that have been free in the past. Nope. I am switching to another site to get my news after being here for many years.

 

[helper800]

It looks like there are a LOT of "premium" only articles today, most of which are the same type of articles that have been free in the past. Nope. I am switching to another site to get my news after being here for many years.

There are two articles on premium today, which one, or both, are you referring to?

 

[txfeinbergs]

The Trump one. Those have always been available to everyone.

 

[Thunder64]

Tom's hardwawre has been my second go to after AT. Maybe I'll start using GN's written site. It's free and doesn't have ads. The articles come a few days after the videos (to protect their income I'm sure) but I can live with that. I can watch the video and if I want to read more later or "ctrl-f" to find something mentioned I don't have to click through a video.

 

[Udyr]

I see a trend where more articles are locked right away without a single comment, many of them being on the political side. I suspect that's the main reason, because moderators don't want to deal with the "off-topic political stuff".

I also wonder if this is another paywalled feature of the site: be a premium member if you want to comment on all articles, which is an overstretch if that's the case.

Like many others have mentioned, the premium offering is too "premium" price wise. I wish you all the best of lucks with that. I'd still read whatever is hastily posted and search for the comments (if any) for another take on the matter.

 

[thesyndrome]

I didn't think too badly of the premium model when you announced it, because you said the only things affected would be certain new features, and to quote you:

Regular content isn’t moving behind a paywall. All the reviews, news, and features you love will continue to be published on our main site, just as they always have been. The content created for Premium is entirely new and developed specifically for subscribers.

Yet one of the first things I haev seen today is that a news article is locked behind a paywall: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-i...facturers-as-major-companies-court-exemptions

This is a news article, which is regular content, which you have literally "moved behind a paywall", which sets a precident for the way this website is going in the future, so I guess it's time to give up on this place altogether and go somewhere like The Register or WCCFTech. This is how TomsHardware ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper as all the regular readers decide to go somewhere else.

 

[Garden-Gnome]

Welcome to the official discussion thread for the Tom's Hardware Premium beta! We're excited to have you on board and can't wait to hear your thoughts.

Well it's very unlikely that I will be a subscriber. I'm not encouraged because of the failure to make a proper UK version of the site, for example one that doesn't only have links to shops in the USA in the articles.

Do you really think that charging for premium in USD on the UK site is a good idea? So the UK price is variable depending on the exchange rate and then an additional fee for the currency exchange. It would be understandable if the publisher wasn't in Bath, but if you can't be bothered what can I say except "goodbye".

 

[Albert.Thomas]

I think this option would be much more attractive if there was an "ad-free" option.

 

[HearMyMoo]

Well it's very unlikely that I will be a subscriber. I'm not encouraged because of the failure to make a proper UK version of the site, for example one that doesn't only have links to shops in the USA in the articles.

Do you really think that charging for premium in USD on the UK site is a good idea? So the UK price is variable depending on the exchange rate and then an additional fee for the currency exchange. It would be understandable if the publisher wasn't in Bath, but if you can't be bothered what can I say except "goodbye".

Let’s face it: as far as Future is concerned there is only the US. At best, there is lip-service to regional focus but even that is barely worthy of the term. I gave up setting my TH to ‘UK’ a long time ago, as it never makes any difference to the content and all deals and advert-articles still refer to US retailers and always state prices in USD. This is pretty universal for Future titles, though, which is a terrible shame when you consider the illustrious history of some of them pre-Future.

Really though, we are all the fools. Future has degraded TH in terms of content, it insists on catering purely to a US audience, it disregards other regions for content and pricing (including for the badly thought out Premium debacle) and we still return to the site each day… At what point are we to blame for not going elsewhere where we are valued more?

 

[HearMyMoo]

I think this option would be much more attractive if there was an "ad-free" option.

Frankly, only an out-of-touch executive suit would think that people will happily pay money to be advertised to. It demonstrates a disturbing disdain for the customer or a depressing lack of understanding of customers’ views of the way advertising and marketing have misbehaved over the past decade or so.

I would be interested to see whether there are any discussions or reevaluations over at Future regarding the proposed Premium structure, seeing as the forum threads for it have seen near universal negative responses. Or will the staff replies dry up, the wagons encircle and they steam ahead with their plans regardless?

 

[KermNelson2]

I have no problem with the subscription price, but I won't volunteer for auto-renewal. Auto-renewal is a deal breaker.

On second thought, even though I really don't like "auto-renewal" I have been depending on your information and do not want to lose any behind a wall. So I'm in for $69 annual with auto-renewal.

 

[P.Amini]

I've been reading TH for more than 20 years, not regularly but it was my main source for PC parts reviews and news. It's hard to pay for the subscription from where I am from but I highly doubt I would pay that kind of money for something that I don't use daily, even if I used it regularly there are tons of other options like other websites, YouTube etc..

 

[scottslayer]

You need to sell me good content at a competitive price that I will not easily find on another site or service, you fail at this completely.
There are three different ways to access the premium content for free that I've found (number 3 will surprise you!)
The articles all range from something I can find out with a basic search and basic attention, articles about thing I can find on other websites for free, and one article (Inside the future of 3D NAND) that seems VERY heavily inspired by Semianalysis and friends.
All of this at a terrible price.

And...is Jarred Walton back on the team? The 5090 premium article I read (for free😊) a few days ago lists him as Senior Editor.

 

[Nick_C]

Not sure what, if any, USP is present to encourage users to part with cash for content that has been, and will continue to be free elsewhere.

Any possible inclination to pay a subscription was undone by the "Just buy it!" article of seven years ago.

 

[Urzu1000]

"We're going to ask you for a monthly subscription, but we're also still going to show you excessive ads, and we're still going to shill some affiliate stuff at you on a regular basis. Oh also our subscription is a lot higher than all the other news sites out there. We don't have any real content yet but trust us that we'll deliver an experience for YOU. Also you have to pay for a year up front, you can't do month-to-month to try it out."

As tempting as the offer is, I think I'll probably just frequent Tom's Hardware less if the articles I want to read get pay walled.

The subscription model itself isn't really the issue, plenty of news sites offer this, but you would expect...

• Lower pricing
• No ads
• Literally anything to add some extra value to this... dark mode??

It sounds silly but there's so little value in this that it's hard to choke up support even as a longtime fan of the site. The price would need to be less than half of what it is now while removing ads for me to even consider it, personally.

I don't mean this to be scathing - I do appreciate the community here, and I really hope that I'm wrong. It would be excellent if this led to a return to the glory days in terms of review quality and journalism. That being said, I'm not holding out much hope that any of this is going to trickle down to writers or towards making a better site experience for the readers.

The level of trust that would have made this appealing to me has been eroded over the last decade.