NaGeo - Sep 4

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In this particular instance, it is because the NatGeo news website is now a paysite. The fuck?

Now, this development is not exactly a surprise: for the last few years the NatGeo magazine online was almost exclusively for money only, aka The Same Deal You Got for the Paper Copy. No biggie. The fact that the general news articles on the website are for money only starting this September (2019) is still annoying. A while back – when the ‘Pathfinder’ franchise was only beginning to prepare to put itself into its’ second edition incarnation – we discussed how ‘Wizards of the Coast’ site for D&D and co. has become a paysite whereas the ‘Pathfinder/Starfinder’ site is an online/Internet store for the different ‘Pathfinder/Starfinder’ merchandise, with a forum where ‘Pathfinder/Starfinder’ fans can discuss the pros and cons of the various ‘Pathfinder/Starfinder’ goods as well as talk about any other topics regarding this franchise. It’s not a bad idea, for a while the franchise also included various novels and comics, but these days the novels are gone, finished, they aren’t made and published any longer, whereas comics seem to be going this way too with barely any presence in the real world. You can, probably, buy them online and all, but how many people do that? – And where does it leave NatGeo?

Now that is an interesting question. This website was never very popular among the Internet users to begin with, and now that it costs separate money from your usual Internet bills and taxes… yeah. Plus, what is its’ point? You can watch NatGeo videos freely on YouTube and similar sites, and the news themselves are often reposts from other sites, sites that are not necessarily paysites and you can read the news there for free again. What is the reasoning behind this tactical move of NatGeos, again?

...Hard to say. For a while, NatGeo tried to be more interactive, literally, we are talking an interactive Internet site here, but sometimes it does not always work. It certainly does not work for the NatGeo magazine, which has grown increasingly clustered over the years, as the magazine’s crew tried to cram more and more info into the same amount of space within the magazine’s physical parameters and the result is largely a glorified photo album with minimum of printed information. Does Disney owe the NatGeo or the Discovery franchise? If it is, the former then they probably are not getting their money’s worth, is what I am saying, and if it is the latter, then this NatGeo strategy is even dumber. Sad face emoji here. End rant.

…This is it for now, I guess. See you all soon!