Why Junkee Is Launching A Paywall

Update: April Fools!

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As we celebrate Junkee’s first birthday, the occasion gives us a chance to reflect on a year of success: viral videos about magical cleaning products and Greens senators; exciting interviews with celebrities, web heroes, and once even a cat; and informative daily updates about sex lists and swearing babies. With our dedicated, award-winning (we assume?) family of writers, we’ve reached hundreds of thousands of readers each day. Maybe even millions. There’s really no way of finding out for sure.

It’s been a rewarding year, and we’ll continue to do this for many more to come. But first, we need your help.

The industry has altered significantly since March 2013. Competition has increased (oh hey, Buzzfeed, JUST SO GREAT TO SEE YOU HERE), advertising rates have plummeted, and — in the endless chase for your temperamental clicks — we’re all tired as shit. Did you know that each GIF we publish is actually a collection of photographs arranged into a looped stop-motion film? That’s really hard to do.

We’ve already had to let some writers go. Alasdair Duncan has been a robot pseudonym for about four months now, and Caitlin Welsh’s insightful Girls recaps actually come out of a generator. Did you even notice that our popular morning column ‘While You Were Sleeping’ ended last November? No one said anything! Why the hell were we waking up at 6am daily for no extra pay when you didn’t even care?

To make sure we can keep your frivolous minds well-distracted with groundbreaking dog content, and to finally answer Elmo Keep’s persistent case against free, we’re installing a secure paywall subscription service, effective from 12.01am on Wednesday April 2.

There are a number of subscription options available:

Web access: $1 for the first month, then $29.99 each month for the rest of your life. Video content incurs an additional fee, dependant on the size of the micro-pig within it.

Tablet app access: $0 for the first week, then $39.99 a month ongoing (subject to change upon development of actual app).

Taste-Tester: $10 each week will give you access to all of our headlines, from which you can make a snap judgement about whether you agree with or are outraged by the article. You will also be granted access to the comments section.

Add-ons:

The Double Dunham Deal: At only $3.99 extra each day, we’ll double our daily Lena Dunham coverage, exclusive to Double Dunham subscribers.

Echo Chamber: At $5.99 each day, we’ll place all of our Tony Abbott-related content in a separate micro-site, which you can either delight in or completely ignore.

Weekend newspaper delivery: $1 for the first month, then $44 a month thereafter. Delivery may be delayed in transit from the golden, extradition-free sands of Acapulco.

Thanks again for helping to make the past twelve months such an exciting journey for Junkee. With your support and financial help, we can keep going. Hopefully. (NB: no refunds.)