Your Feedback Needed: What if Tom's Hardware Had a Subscription Service?

[NightHawkRMX]

Please don't do this.

Merch would be nice tho.

 

[Karadjgne]

Ad blockers only work if the site allows such. I'm on another forum, it's open to any with registration, but it contains ads as part of the forum, so they aren't blocked by ad blockers. Part of the 'donation' to the site by becoming any of the paid members gets you a flag similar to ambassador, and that flag IS the ad blocker by virtue of ignoring specific posts.

There's no other benefits for paid membership, no special considerations, it's just a way of contributing to the site for its continuance. Any profit goes towards creation of merch, helping to offset event costs etc.

As far as benefits for paid, cosmetics is the obvious choice, the ability to apply other themes, seperate member forums for sharing such etc

 

[bit_user]

Here are some ideas we’ve batted around. We’d love to know which of these would be valuable to you and what other benefits you’d want to see:

• Exclusive stories with more of an insider / industry focus
• Special newsletters with exclusive content
• Ad-free or ad-limited experience
• Exclusive coupon codes and discounts
• Percentage cash back (like Rakuten) on products clicked from our site
• Special placement / flair for article comments
• TH Merch (hat, t-shirt)

What else would you like to see and, among the exclusive content, what topics do you like best?

I currently subscribe to two other sites. They both offer content I can't get elsewhere. One is already ad-free, the other provides ad-free browsing to paid subscribers. Neither has any pay-walled content.

In general, things I would like to see (and I'd suggest these not be pay-walled):

• More deep dives & Hot Chips-type coverage.
• More interviews with key industry players.
• Run SPECbench in reviews of everything from Raspberry Pi to workstation machines, since it gives us close to an apples-to-apples comparison, and Anandtech has dropped the ball on this.
• Better coverage of energy-efficient options, either specifically energy-efficient products or simply looking at the performance-tradeoffs of setting custom limits on mainstream CPUs.
• More reviews of cooling solutions and looking at their performance impact.
• Fewer click-bait type articles and titles.

BTW, do you have something like a "suggestion box" for specific article ideas?

 

[Rogue Leader]

I know I'd subscribe, if I got access to a special forum of IT professionals (who actually knew what they were talking about) that could give real-time advice on various tech problems I might encounter. The users are great, don't get me wrong, but you don't always get 100% accurate advice (or it takes a while to weed through the various suggestions until you land on the right one that works). If I had a way to cut through all that and get my issue solved right away, I'd gladly pay for that!

I'll be honest with you that would likely be cost prohibitive to keep up. I don't see anything like that happening.

 

[Math Geek]

i'd support the site with an ad free subscription so long as it wasn't too much. couple bucks a month or $20 for a year and i'd not even hesitate.

merch would be fun as well. i got lucky and won one of those cool hammers few years back. i'd love some more stuff to add to it.

 

[maskleon]

Introducing a subscription service for Tom's Hardware could provide an enhanced user experience. Subscribers might access exclusive in-depth articles, early product reviews, and personalized tech recommendations. This model could foster deeper engagement and support the platform's quality content while maintaining a free tier for wider accessibility. Feedback from the community would be vital in shaping such an offering.

 

[bit_user]

Introducing a subscription service for Tom's Hardware could provide an enhanced user experience. Subscribers might access exclusive in-depth articles, early product reviews, and personalized tech recommendations. This model could foster deeper engagement and support the platform's quality content while maintaining a free tier for wider accessibility. Feedback from the community would be vital in shaping such an offering.

Oh, tell me more sweet nothings, ChatGPT!
; )

 

[HerbertSherbet]

I don't really read tomshardware or tomsguide because the articles I see on the front page aren't stuff that I'm interested in reading. I trust them to be good, but I'm not interested in anything I see on the frontpage when I go to look. I go to these forums because I know the responses that posts may get are of high quality and that I might be able to learn from them. I lurk more than I post. The users give this forum value and I'm grateful to that so when I post in other threads I try to add what value I can.

I don't have any advice to give about how things should change, but I at least have the following to say:

• If a news article cannot be read in full then I stop reading it immediately. I throw it out. I go away. If I'm interested then I'll look up the subject for another article by someone else. I do this because sometimes I really need the information that is kept from me in order to fully understand the subject. I don't want, accidentally or intentionally, to be misinformed directly because I only heard half of the reported story. I have seen plenty of articles that must be read through to the end to be correctly understood.
• There are ways to get around walls. If you hide something behind a wall then people are going to look for ways to get around it. I can name two ways that aren't exactly appropriate to bring up here. I feel it is important to mention that they exist for honesty's sake about the lay of the land.
• People who subscribe may choose to reproduce the article text elsewhere when they want to share it because they know that people wouldn't be able to read it otherwise.
• How tall of a wall do you want to erect? I'm being serious here. I appreciate when a news website lets me disable or change something on my end (usually javascript because the text gets loaded first, then the article) to be able to read the whole article. This is less common now as more websites tighten things down. If you allow for an inconvenient but reliable way to read the article that's never officially recommended then you will have my audience. Some article pirate methods, just like some social media services that share news articles, have ads themselves. If you can stuff ads into this secondary method then I think people will accept it without complaint.

So in summary, I think a subscription service that hides the majority of advertisements and makes the site more convenient to use is the way to go. Don't forget that the perception of the number of ads can be more important than the raw number of ads. Stuffing them in the middle of an article or in any kind of thing that covers part of what I want to read is something that will feel more intrusive. Ads for the subscription service count as ads.

How to make that idea actionable? Hire website designers who can put together a great user experience for subscribers and a lightly annoying user experience for non-subscribers. Think about where to put the ads so that they are ever present without decreasing functionality, keep the number of clicks to read the article text low (Zero is best. Please don't metagame the maximum number of clicks you can get users to accept without pushing them away.), don't auto-play any video or audio in a text-only article (I will click on them for the sake of closing them or blocking them.).

Right now I've seen an uptick of news websites putting the hooks for other articles near the conclusion of the article without making it obvious that it's from something else. Some of them do it before the conclusion. Some of them used to make it very obvious but then changed to making it sneaky. Please don't do that. That's not respecting the time of the reader. When that happens I have to intentionally remember that if I want to get more news from that website then I will have to be careful about how I read this. This is literally a direct example of a news website having a design that is adversarial to the reader. Please, think about ways to do this in a way that is not adversarial. If I had a thesis of this post then that line would be it.

I am not an expert in this field at all. This is all me telling you what I think with no true understanding of the position of Tom's Hardware. But I am sure of one thing: It's possible to do a better job than what other websites are doing. I don't know what that is-- But when you try do put this subscription service into action please try to one-up the competition in a manner that makes a difference to the end user. That doesn't have to be a costly feature. I am not asking for something that is costly to keep going. It can be something passive and simple too.

Best of luck with it all. Thank you for existing. And thank you for your effort that you've poured into this place.

 

[Order 66]

The least offensive/invasive/problematic method of monetization I can think of is something which does not reduce/hides the content (articles, reviews, news, forum/Discord access, etc) and only operates at a cosmetic level (forum badge, special portrait frame, larger signature space, maybe early access to some niche content, special forum/Discord area, etc) so your exposure as a site is not reduced to the point of annoyance for your casual reader. Remember we all start as students learning about sites and get involved from that point and then we become nasty buggers that never leave

The rest would be adding merchandise and other 3rd party things which are separate from the main site operations: mugs, iRL badges and stickers (I have some from a few years back you guys sent me!) for your PC. Small things that would be welcome by many and could be simple gifts, I think. Bigger types of merchandise could be a bigger risk, so I would suggest starting small if you go this route, I guess.

Other than those core 2 ideas, making your YouTube presence stronger. Jarred has been trying his best, for sure, but I have to say it feels/looks like he's been trying without much backing from the main Corporate branch? If that makes any semblance of sense? Fund a proper studio or help them arrange a working space for a proper studio would be a great idea? I dunno. Point is to make the online viewership all-around stronger and, like or not, YT is a very strong exposition place for you guys, so totally worth investing there in a serious manner. And no, making the YT presence better does not mean written space will be weaker: you need to strike a balance you're comfortable with and I think Jarred was on the right track.

I hope this helps.

Regards.

I agree, as I am a casual reader of articles that pique my interest, I cannot justify yet another subscription.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

We’d love to know what types of benefits you’d like to see that might motivate you to subscribe.

only thing that might motivate me to subscribe to a group site like Tom's where most input seems to come from other members, not usually a paid staff, would be offering in-house techs to come out and personally offer diagnostics & repair of systems. since location & travel would normally prevent this then there really is nothing to be paying for.

also maybe offering a lot of contests with hardware and software prizes available could make it worth a subscription for a lot of users?

if Tom's is hurting for money;
even just requesting donations for data, networking, site management, etc seems to work for a lot of the community sites out there.
maybe just add a stickied thread to every forum/sub-forum explaining what donated funds would be used for and how to donate.

i've seen a few members mention that they would like to see YouTube video articles included. please do not do that.
if i wanted videos to watch i would be browsing YouTube, not Tom's.
i much prefer reading articles related to topics that interest me and also offer some hope that some of these current generations can actually spell and understand grammar.
really seems like there's no point in someone just reading the article out loud on video, that would just be annoying.

 

[bit_user]

Thinking about it more, I guess I'm struck by the question: what does Toms do that I can't get elsewhere? I come here because it's a little bit of everything: news, reviews, some deep coverage, interviews, rumors, etc. However, pretty much none of it is stuff I couldn't get somewhere else (and too often better, elsewhere). The two online publications to which I currently subscribe both provide things I can't get anywhere else.

The deep coverage is pretty good, but rather infrequent. There used to be some good articles providing component selection advice for those building gaming PCs at each of 3 different price points, but I can't recall the last time I saw one of those. I think Jarred writes some wonderful GPU articles, but there's only so much to be covered there. The storage reviews are great for the breadth and depth of the benchmarks, on the few occasions I find myself looking for them.

I might be willing to subscribe, but it depends on the amount - and I'm probably the exception. I think you'd either need to inspire passion for your mission, among your subscriber base, or simply give people something they can't get elsewhere. Those are the only ways I see subscriptions being a major revenue source. If you just provided ad-free browsing, that'd be better than nothing (and something I'd sure appreciate), but I doubt it'll be a game changer.

 

[lojikal]

I have and will always use an AdBlocker extension simply for the fact that I detest the notion of a company trying to invade my subconscious to persuade me into purchasing any product. That being said I understand that the cost factor associated with the operation of a website/forum such as Tom's Hardware and as such am in full support of a subscription fee.