The Verge raises a partial paywall: ‘It’s a tragedy that garbage is free and news is behind paywalls’ | Semafor

Editor-in-chief Nilay Patel told Semafor that the move was intended to drive additional revenue and insulate The Verge from changes made by social media platforms impacting traffic on stories and tech reviews. Patel said that The Verge is already the most popular homepage across all of Vox Media’s sites, and much of its core audience has been willing to deeply engage with the publication’s work.

“We’ve always felt really strongly that The Verge needs to report on these companies from outside of them,” Patel said. “And the more that media gets sucked into platforms owned by Google and Meta and Apple and whatever else, the harder it is to do that work.”

Patel continued: “We are not chasing platform traffic, we’re not chasing social video views, we’re not doing sponsored content to make our business go like everyone else is forced to do. If you want to go play in those games, you have no choice but to do sponsor integrations. That’s just how those businesses work. We won’t do it, we sell our ethics policy. And we think we have an audience that wants us to keep doing it and will pay for it.”

The Verge’s decision to raise a paywall comes at a moment when many news media companies are grappling with the dilemma of an emerging gulf between the information ecosystems of free and paid news. As more media companies lean into subscriptions to drive revenue, the reach and impact of their news stories is often limited, or targeted more toward an affluent, educated audience willing to pay for news.

Patel told Semafor that the desire to continue to reach and inform broader audiences factored into the decision to keep a segment of The Verge available for free. Some content, as well as shorter news-focused stories, and the publication’s homepage, which was redesigned in 2022 to resemble a social feed, will remain free.

“I think it’s a tragedy that garbage is free and news is behind paywalls. I don’t want to make that worse,” Patel said. “I think that The Verge homepage and our news coverage serves a central utility function in our ecosystem.”

The move is part of an increasing shift toward better monetizing subscribers, rather than simply reaching the largest number of readers and viewers through stories shared on social media. The Verge is Vox Media’s third major subscription push behind New York and Vox, which launched a membership program earlier this year.

On Sunday, Semafor reported that New York Magazine was relaunching its flagship mobile app, which had been dormant since 2022. The new app offered readers comprehensive access to the magazine across its separately-branded verticals like The Cut and Vulture, a spokesperson for Vox Media confirmed to Semafor, and was intended to bolster subscriber engagement and help continue to foster audience loyalty away from the mediation of tech platforms.