No bundling model is going to work with the papers worth reading, with high-value ones. Look at that list: no FT, only partial WSJ, no Bloomberg (only Businessweek), no Economist, no NYT, no Foreign Affairs, no SCMP. I guess Foreign Policy and Puck bundled could be cool but most "high-value" publications are excluded. This is like netflix where it's never worth subscribing because it's ten thousand things you don't care to watch.
> No bundling model is going to work with the papers worth reading, with high-value ones.
The "high-value" ones don't need to bother with micro-transactions either. They can tell everyone to kick rocks or pay for their subscription -- because they already have a large well-established market of people that consider them high-value enough to pay their subscription fee.
On the other hand, many of the regional ones (for me) like the Houston Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, Austin American-Statesman and sometimes the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Los Angeles Times are not in the same position to do that. That doesn't make them not "high-value". Maybe they could get away with micro-transactions but instead of having to manage that they can sign up with services like Apple News+ and focus on the value they bring, regional news.
It's also subjective as to whether or not the other ones included are "worth reading". I personally enjoy quite a few listed in the Science & Tech section, but don't read them enough to pay for individual subscriptions, or deal with micro-payments that I have forgotten about a month later when the statement arrives.
There may be a space for these "high-value" publications to get together and form their own bundle, if they were so inclined
>Apple News+ is ~$13 The list of publications included
Fyi... Apple News+ subscribers don't get the full subscription to all the participating publications. This means a subset of articles and/or partial articles (teasers) that require extra payment to get past a paywall to read the rest of the story. This surprises some people.
People seem to be complaining that they can’t access Washington Post articles, but in 2024, when that thread was written, The Washington Post was not included in Apple News Plus. It joined in 2025 (https://9to5mac.com/2025/09/29/apple-news-just-added-the-was...).
What you could do before that was register your Washington Post subscription, if you had one, with the Apple News app, then you’d be able to read full Washington Post articles - perhaps this was confusing the forum posters?
Apple News+ has tried this. If anyone could pull it off, it's Apple.
But the problem is, it's not comprehensive enough. The two major newspapers/magazines I read aren't on there, because they've got enough market power to require their own subscriptions. Meanwhile, this is similarly missing the long tail of a lot of links I follow that are paywalled.
And then of course there are the massive usability issues. If I see a link on HN to e.g. Forbes, and click it, I just get the paywall. Apple News+ doesn't work in the browser. I understand that sometimes it's possible to use Share... in the browser to send an article to Apple News+, but that seems to require knowing it's one of the included 300+ publications? Which nobody's going to memorize...
Apple News+ is ~$13
https://www.apple.com/apple-news/
The list of publications included
https://www.apple.com/apple-news/publications/