Former Stars Thread

[Knives Out]

[The Frugal Gourmet]

So you're saying he's available?

[ToddM]

What, like, romantically?

[wonko80]

Apparently Sean Shapiro got canned from The Athletic. Hopefully he finds a gig as his writing was always good. He started a substack for now.

Oh, and I'm sure there will be assholes in the comments section of Saad's articles asking to get Sean back.

[ScubaSteve]

He could write for Defending Big D

[wonko80]

He's not a Gurianov fan, nor Honka fan, so "creative differences" probably prevent that. Also the need to actually earn money.

[The Frugal Gourmet]

He should just write for TSF. It's my only source of Stars news anyway.

[ScubaSteve]

This message board would never survive with a legitimate news source attached to it

[cdanew]

Apparently Sean Shapiro got canned from The Athletic. Hopefully he finds a gig as his writing was always good. He started a substack for now.

Oh, and I'm sure there will be assholes in the comments section of Saad's articles asking to get Sean back.

It's an interesting psychological exercise. I looked at Shapiro's substack. A subscription is $7 a month / $84 a year. I can't mentally justify that even if I do like his content usually. My subscription to The Athletic is around $72 per year. I get a lot more out of that than one writer - even if I do like that writer's style and content. I do share my subscription with the twins, so I also mentally spread that cost among the three of us.

I have noticed that some of the better writers have been leaving the Athletic since the NYT purchased it. The original model was probably unsustainable - paying good writers a decent wage for good content (but using the venture capital investments to pay those operating costs and build up a subscriber base rather than paying for things out of actual operating revenue). Will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

[wonko80]

He was clear that he didn't want anyone to do the full year and only do the month to month. Substack just didn't let him remove the annual option.

[mookie1010]

Apparently Sean Shapiro got canned from The Athletic. Hopefully he finds a gig as his writing was always good. He started a substack for now.

Oh, and I'm sure there will be assholes in the comments section of Saad's articles asking to get Sean back.

It's an interesting psychological exercise. I looked at Shapiro's substack. A subscription is $7 a month / $84 a year. I can't mentally justify that even if I do like his content usually. My subscription to The Athletic is around $72 per year. I get a lot more out of that than one writer - even if I do like that writer's style and content. I do share my subscription with the twins, so I also mentally spread that cost among the three of us.

I have noticed that some of the better writers have been leaving the Athletic since the NYT purchased it. The original model was probably unsustainable - paying good writers a decent wage for good content (but using the venture capital investments to pay those operating costs and build up a subscriber base rather than paying for things out of actual operating revenue). Will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

I tend to agree - it's easy to say "I mean, what's 7 bucks a month?" when looking at something you get value from as a subscriber, but eventually a consumer has to curate that to make things work for them, and it gets cumbersome.

This *poo poo* has to cycle back to free content driven by ads or small monthly fees at some point.

I kinda wish there were a way I could have "net coins" where no matter the publisher or owner, if I wanted to read an article on any topic that was paywalled I could just throw $0.50 or so at the article and read it right then rather than all these GD subscriptions to manage.

The subscription model sucks for a lot of things, and there's a reason so many companies are pushing their own versions of it, and it sure ain't to save the consumer anything.

[slaps]

Apparently Sean Shapiro got canned from The Athletic. Hopefully he finds a gig as his writing was always good. He started a substack for now.

Oh, and I'm sure there will be assholes in the comments section of Saad's articles asking to get Sean back.

It's an interesting psychological exercise. I looked at Shapiro's substack. A subscription is $7 a month / $84 a year. I can't mentally justify that even if I do like his content usually. My subscription to The Athletic is around $72 per year. I get a lot more out of that than one writer - even if I do like that writer's style and content. I do share my subscription with the twins, so I also mentally spread that cost among the three of us.

I have noticed that some of the better writers have been leaving the Athletic since the NYT purchased it. The original model was probably unsustainable - paying good writers a decent wage for good content (but using the venture capital investments to pay those operating costs and build up a subscriber base rather than paying for things out of actual operating revenue). Will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

The Athletic has been cutting / firing a lot of writers. And their coverage has really gone downhill, too.

Also, the introduction of ads on a paid premium service (that expressly promised an ad-free experience) is a hard no from me.

[The Frugal Gourmet]

Things are awesome until you try to make money.

[cdanew]

Also, the introduction of ads on a paid premium service (that expressly promised an ad-free experience) is a hard no from me.

This is an interesting one for me. If the ads are unobtrusive and aren't giving all of my treasured digital information to the highest bidder, I don't necessarily mind. Remember magazines and newspapers you subscribed to? Those had ads and didn't bother me. Now if you start talking videos I'm forced to watch before I can view an article, I will have issues. But if you want to put a Tide logo in a box on the page I'm looking at, knock yourself out.

[The Frugal Gourmet]

I mean this is classic and you could see it coming a mile away. It's the dot-com bait and switch. Get the subscribers and then try to figure out how to make the money.

[slaps]

Also, the introduction of ads on a paid premium service (that expressly promised an ad-free experience) is a hard no from me.

This is an interesting one for me. If the ads are unobtrusive and aren't giving all of my treasured digital information to the highest bidder, I don't necessarily mind. Remember magazines and newspapers you subscribed to? Those had ads and didn't bother me. Now if you start talking videos I'm forced to watch before I can view an article, I will have issues. But if you want to put a Tide logo in a box on the page I'm looking at, knock yourself out.

I guess I should say I am not OK paying the rate I agreed to for what they expressly said would be an ad-free service.

[ScubaSteve]

As soon as any service you like gets gobbled up by private equity, it’s over. Something that starts as a good idea or novel service suddenly becomes all about the bottom line, and cost cutting measures + additional revenue are all that matter, until eventually the project fails, the private equity firm takes the tacks write off on the bankruptcy, and everyone moves on to the next thing.

[Troy McClure]

And some of this is driven by us consumers. The Athletic built up an impressive subscriber base but obviously not enough to be fully self sustaining.

I'm not too mad about the ads. I get it. It's either that or fold or make even more cuts. I'd rather fight through ads for the coverage I want than not have it at all.

[ScubaSteve]

Ads being introduced to a paid subscription service that was billed as being ad-free is a game as old as cable television. Netflix already said ads are coming there too

[slaps]

And some of this is driven by us consumers. The Athletic built up an impressive subscriber base but obviously not enough to be fully self sustaining.

I'm not too mad about the ads. I get it. It's either that or fold or make even more cuts. I'd rather fight through ads for the coverage I want than not have it at all.

It didn't help that they constantly ran $1/month offers.

[Troy McClure]

And some of this is driven by us consumers. The Athletic built up an impressive subscriber base but obviously not enough to be fully self sustaining.

I'm not too mad about the ads. I get it. It's either that or fold or make even more cuts. I'd rather fight through ads for the coverage I want than not have it at all.

It didn't help that they constantly ran $1/month offers.

My takeaway from those subscription deals was they weren't attracting enough subscribers.

[Jason]

James Neal: “Calgary was kind of the death of me when I went there”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/flamesnati ... y-gaudreau

[B Kat]

Net coins is a good idea, Mook.

I subscribe to the Athletic, but tried to cancel this renewal b/c I haven’t read it much in the last year, they begged me to stay for a lower rate, which I did. I’m not crazy about the Stars coverage and I didn’t love Shapiro either.

[mookie1010]

I'm pretty sure, like all my ideas, I stole it from someone either consciously or otherwise.

[wonko80]

You should put that on your resume

[slaps]

And then you can re-type it into the application system.

[Eskimo Spy]

Don't forget to send a copy via fax, then scan it and email it to yourself.

[Knives Out]

[The Frugal Gourmet]

He's had the same Seguin stats plummet, but starting from a much lower number.

Admittedly, Buffalo could be a factor there.

Diggin' the great red mane though.

[slaps]

Sonny Milano might be worth a 1-year offer. The Flames are pretty stacked but unless the Stars keep Stankoven and Johnston and sit some guys who can fill in, the Stars don't have a ton of guys who can score 25+ points in limited ice time.