The Economics of The Magazine  

Why Isn’t The Magazine Free With Ads? Volume.

To achieve [current subscription revenue] consistently, The Magazine would have to sell ads at $2.66 CPM on 13 million page views a month, which means we would probably need 20 million page views to make those numbers.

Is our modest fortnightly periodical going to attract 20 million page views against 150 or so articles every month? Unlikely. Can we attract enough subscribers on an ongoing basis to bring in revenue that lets us pay writers well and sustain our operations? Yes.

Also worth mentioning this excellent post from Seth Sternberg, former CEO of Meebo.

I was at an event the other day in San Francisco and ran into a friend. He’s running a business many of you have heard of. We got to talking, and early on he said “I’m never doing an advertising business again!” My gut reaction: “no kidding”.