guitar world introduced a paywall for its online articles. The website, one of the largest online guitar magazines, is the first of its kind to introduce an online paywall, which is now operated alongside its traditional print subscription.
If you have read five or more articles on The world of guitars website over the past month, the paywall will begin to appear in news, features and reviews of the website. It has also been implemented on the online versions of Future Publishing’s other guitar-related titles – Guitarist, total guitar, guitar techniques and Bass playerhowever, it does not currently appear on MusicRadarwhich is also owned by Future and publishes guitar-related content.
The paywall appears after the first paragraphs of each article, cutting off the rest of the text. Clicking on the registration link takes you to an account creation page, which asks you to provide your email address. Once an account has been created, and payment information in order to create an account and continue reading. Subscriptions are priced at £2.99/$3.99 per month or £29.00/$39.00 per year.
guitar world is the first notable guitar-focused online publication to implement this style of paywall. More general news outlets such as The Washington Post and The New York Times have however maintained one over the past few years.
In part, paywalls such as these help counter the effects of ad blockers and maintain a more reliable revenue stream from online content. However, reader reaction is often mixed, to say the least. In response to this, some outlets such as The Guardian and The Independent opt for a “soft” paywall instead – offering readers the choice to subscribe in exchange for various benefits, most often ad-free (guilt-free) browsing, and the removal of obstructive reminders to subscribe. It is currently unclear whether the subscription to guitar world disables advertisements on the site.
Last year, Future Publishing announced that its profits had nearly doubled to £107.8m for 2020/2021, despite an industry-wide decline in print magazine readership.
guitar world did not immediately respond to a request for comment.