Hard problems · Media economics
Modeling a single subscription to the entire French press
An open, reproducible economic model, with an online simulator, to test the idea of a single pass giving access to all paid French news.
Context
A personal proposal, published as open source, informed by my eleven years working with news publishers.
The problem
Readers who want several titles have to stack subscriptions, and most stop at one. Meanwhile, AI-generated answers in search engines are cutting traffic to news sites. A global licence, meaning a single subscription whose revenue is redistributed to publishers, regularly comes up in the debate. But the objection is always the same: what some would gain, others would lose.
The approach
Start from public data, the audiences certified by ACPM (France's audit bureau of circulations), so anyone can check.
Strictly separate three levels of information: what is sourced, what is estimated, and what is only an assumption.
Model the redistribution title by title, using two keys: each publisher's contribution, and audience.
Analyze precedents abroad, both those that worked and those that failed.
Publish an online simulator where anyone can change the assumptions and see the effect on each title.
The result
According to the model, in a conservative scenario and without counting any AI-related revenue, 82 out of 84 titles come out ahead. The model, code and data are openly available.
What's transferable
Faced with a complex collective decision, an open model changes the conversation: instead of debating intuitions, you debate explicit assumptions that anyone can challenge and test. It's the same approach for a pricing, location or investment decision in a company.