Another way to bootstrap this immensely desirable "spotify for news" model could be a platform (trusted third party) for mutual co-subscriptions. Subscribe with publication A, also gain access (metered behind the scenes, redistributing some predetermined part of the subscription fee according to measured consumption) to otherwise equally paywalled publications B,C and D.
But something like that will only happen when attractiveness for publications is maximised, which requires, amongst other things, that the platform avoids consumer facing lock-in or even just branding, because that would make publications (rightly) fear that they hand over whatever pre-existing digital subscriptions they already have to an exploitative intermediary. This in turn pretty much rules out the VC model for starting the platform, since eventually becoming exploitative is a required ingredient of the risk equation. But I see no reason why this could not work as a cooperative, because all the platform marketing would be directed at potential members. Consumer marketing, something in which a cooperative would tend to be inferior to a metrics-driven VC project (by a wide margin I suspect), would be left entirely to publications, who subsequently get to "own" the subscriptions they pulled in. Important design parameters would be the ratio between pooled and unpooled fees and the exact rules about weigh and how much content member publications would be allowed to keep exclusive to their direct subscribers. Outside of implementation, the biggest challenge would be to convince publications that few people would ever subscribe directly to multiple channels (how many people had now than one daily newspaper?) and that therefore, the content made available to subscribers of their peers would not cannibalize potential direct subscriptions very much.
This is a very good point, and I'm guessing something that has blocked this model from working in the past - it's totally natural that newspapers wouldn't want to lose control/ownership of their subscriber base. And I think you're right that that implies that it might be much better to set this up as a JV/cooperative between various papers, with a software arm that charges fees to the parent organization, but that doesn't own the core assets (those being owned by the papers).
Would also need to devise some way to get out of the coop, or structure it so that the members feel confident that it won't paint them into a terrible corner.
I'm not the right person to build this, it's mostly a BD problem (and I have a very long to-do list anyway), but I hope someone takes a stab at doing it right. Seems like various people have tried to do it as a more traditional startup, but I think the danger to the publications is probably too great with that structure, which would make it much harder to get buy in.
But something like that will only happen when attractiveness for publications is maximised, which requires, amongst other things, that the platform avoids consumer facing lock-in or even just branding, because that would make publications (rightly) fear that they hand over whatever pre-existing digital subscriptions they already have to an exploitative intermediary. This in turn pretty much rules out the VC model for starting the platform, since eventually becoming exploitative is a required ingredient of the risk equation. But I see no reason why this could not work as a cooperative, because all the platform marketing would be directed at potential members. Consumer marketing, something in which a cooperative would tend to be inferior to a metrics-driven VC project (by a wide margin I suspect), would be left entirely to publications, who subsequently get to "own" the subscriptions they pulled in. Important design parameters would be the ratio between pooled and unpooled fees and the exact rules about weigh and how much content member publications would be allowed to keep exclusive to their direct subscribers. Outside of implementation, the biggest challenge would be to convince publications that few people would ever subscribe directly to multiple channels (how many people had now than one daily newspaper?) and that therefore, the content made available to subscribers of their peers would not cannibalize potential direct subscriptions very much.