Technology
Ranked: The Most Popular Paid Subscription News Websites
Ranked: The Most Popular Subscription News Websites
While paywalls are becoming increasingly more popular among news websites, most consumers still aren’t willing to pay for their online news.
In fact, a recent survey by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism reveals that only 20% of Americans pay for digital news, and of those that do, the majority subscribe to only one brand.
This begs the question—which news outlets are audiences willing to pay for?
Using data from FIPP and CeleraOne, this graphic looks at the most popular news websites across the globe, based on their total number of paid subscriptions.
*Note: This report relies on publicly available data, and should not be considered an exhaustive list.
The Full Breakdown
With 7.5 million subscriptions, The New York Times (NYT) takes the top spot on the list. 2020 was an exceptionally strong year for the outlet—by Q3 2020, the NYT had generated the same amount of revenue from digital subscriptions as it had for the entire year of 2019.
Rank | Publication | Paid Subscriptions |
---|---|---|
1 | 🇺🇸 The New York Times | 6,100,000 |
2 | 🇺🇸 The Washington Post | 3,000,000 |
3 | 🇺🇸 The Wall Street Journal | 2,400,000 |
4 | 🇺🇸 Game Informer | 2,100,000 |
5 | 🇬🇧 Financial Times | 1,100,000 |
6 | 🇺🇸 The Athletic | 1,000,000 |
7 | 🇬🇧 The Guardian | 790,000 |
8 | 🇯🇵 Nikkei | 769,000 |
9 | 🇬🇧 The Economist | 516,000 |
10 | 🇨🇳 Caixin | 510,000 |
11 | 🇩🇪 Bild | 494,000 |
12 | 🇬🇧 The Sunday Times | 337,000 |
13 | 🇬🇧 The Telegraph | 320,000 |
14 | 🇺🇸 The Atlantic | 300,000 |
15 | 🇮🇹 Corriere Della Sera | 300,000 |
16 | 🇫🇷 Le Monde | 300,000 |
17 | 🇺🇸 The Boston Globe | 270,000 |
18 | 🇦🇷 La Nacion | 260,000 |
19 | 🇦🇷 Clarin | 260,000 |
20 | 🇫🇷 L'equipe | 259,000 |
21 | 🇺🇸 Los Angeles Times | 253,000 |
22 | 🇸🇪 Aftonbladet | 250,000 |
23 | 🇺🇸 The New Yorker | 240,000 |
24 | 🇵🇱 Wyborcza | 240,000 |
25 | 🇧🇷 Folha de S.Paulo | 236,000 |
26 | 🇸🇪 Dagens Nyheter | 208,000 |
27 | 🇺🇸 Business Insider | 200,000 |
28 | 🇫🇷 Mediapart | 170,000 |
29 | 🇳🇴 VG | 150,000 |
30 | 🇺🇸 Wired | 142,000 |
31 | 🇨🇦 The Globe and Mail | 139,000 |
32 | 🇩🇪 Welt | 132,000 |
33 | 🇳🇴 Aftenposten | 119,000 |
34 | 🇫🇷 Le Figaro | 110,000 |
35 | 🇺🇸 Chicago Tribune | 100,000 |
36 | 🇺🇸 Star Tribune | 100,000 |
37 | 🇳🇴 Dagbladet | 100,000 |
38 | 🇫🇮 Helsingin Sanomat | 100,000 |
The Times is the most popular by a landslide—it has over double the number of subscriptions than the second outlet on the list, The Washington Post. Yet, while WaPo is no match for NYT, it still boasts a strong following, with approximately 3 million paid subscriptions as of Q4 2020.
Japanese outlet Nikkei ranks number one among the non-English news websites. It’s the largest business newspaper in Japan, mainly focusing on markets and finance, but also covering politics, sports, and health.
Legacy Papers: Which Websites Come From Traditional Media?
Most of the websites on this list stem from traditional media. Because of this, they’ve had years to establish themselves as trusted sources, and win over loyal readers.
Interestingly, more than half of the outlets included in this ranking are at least 100 years old.
Publication | Year Launched | Age (Years) |
---|---|---|
🇬🇧 The Guardian | 1821 | 200 |
🇬🇧 The Sunday Times | 1821 | 200 |
🇫🇷 Le Figaro | 1826 | 195 |
🇸🇪 Aftonbladet | 1830 | 190 |
🇬🇧 The Economist | 1843 | 178 |
🇺🇸 Chicago Tribune | 1847 | 173 |
🇺🇸 NYT | 1852 | 169 |
🇬🇧 The Telegraph | 1855 | 166 |
🇺🇸 The Atlantic | 1857 | 164 |
🇳🇴 Aftenposten | 1860 | 160 |
🇸🇪 Dagens Nyheter | 1864 | 157 |
🇺🇸 Star Tribune | 1867 | 154 |
🇳🇴 Dagbladet | 1869 | 152 |
🇦🇷 La Nacion | 1870 | 151 |
🇺🇸 The Boston Globe | 1872 | 149 |
🇮🇹 Corriere Della Sera | 1876 | 145 |
🇺🇸 Washington Post | 1877 | 144 |
🇯🇵 Nikkei.com | 1876 | 144 |
🇺🇸 LA Times | 1881 | 140 |
🇬🇧 Financial Times | 1888 | 133 |
🇺🇸 Wall Street Journal | 1889 | 132 |
🇫🇮 Helsingin Sanomat | 1889 | 132 |
🇧🇷 Folha de S.Paulo | 1921 | 100 |
🇺🇸 The New Yorker | 1925 | 96 |
🇨🇦 The Globe and Mail | 1936 | 85 |
🇫🇷 Le Monde | 1944 | 77 |
🇦🇷 Clarin | 1945 | 76 |
🇳🇴 VG | 1945 | 76 |
🇫🇷 L'equipe | 1946 | 75 |
🇩🇪 Welt | 1946 | 75 |
🇩🇪 Bild | 1952 | 69 |
🇵🇱 Wyborcza | 1989 | 32 |
🇺🇸 Game Informer | 1991 | 30 |
🇺🇸 Wired | 1993 | 28 |
🇺🇸 Business Insider | 2007 | 14 |
🇫🇷 Mediapart | 2008 | 13 |
🇨🇳 Caixin | 2009 | 12 |
🇺🇸 The Athletic | 2016 | 5 |
Yet, undeterred by these well-established outlets, a few scrappy websites made the cut despite a shorter history. Four out of the 38 websites are less than 20 years old.
The Athletic is the newest outlet to make the ranking. Established in 2016, the outlet’s target demographic is die-hard sports fans who miss the days of in-depth, quality sports writing.
The Need For Trusted Sources
Amidst the global pandemic, issues involving misinformation and fake news have helped reaffirm the important role that trusted news sources play in the dissemination of public information.
With this in mind, it’ll be interesting to see what the future holds for digital media consumption. With paywalls becoming increasingly more common, will consumers jump on board and eventually be more willing to pay for their news?
Technology
Ranked: America’s 20 Biggest Tech Layoffs Since 2020
How bad are the current layoffs in the tech sector? This visual reveals the 20 biggest tech layoffs since the start of the pandemic.

Ranked: America’s 20 Biggest Tech Layoffs This Decade
The events of the last few years could not have been predicted by anyone. From a global pandemic and remote work as the standard, to a subsequent hiring craze, rising inflation, and now, mass layoffs.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, essentially laid off the equivalent of a small town just weeks ago, letting go of 12,000 people—the biggest layoffs the company has ever seen in its history. Additionally, Amazon and Microsoft have also laid off 10,000 workers each in the last few months, not to mention Meta’s 11,000.
This visual puts the current layoffs in the tech industry in context and ranks the 20 biggest tech layoffs of the 2020s using data from the tracker, Layoffs.fyi.
The Top 20 Layoffs of the 2020s
Since 2020, layoffs in the tech industry have been significant, accelerating in 2022 in particular. Here’s a look at the companies that laid off the most people over the last three years.
Rank | Company | # Laid Off | % of Workforce | As of |
---|---|---|---|---|
#1 | 12,000 | 6% | Jan 2023 | |
#2 | Meta | 11,000 | 13% | Nov 2021 |
#3 | Amazon | 10,000 | 3% | Nov 2021 |
#4 | Microsoft | 10,000 | 5% | Jan 2023 |
#5 | Salesforce | 8,000 | 10% | Jan 2023 |
#6 | Amazon | 8,000 | 2% | Jan 2023 |
#7 | Uber | 6,700 | 24% | May 2020 |
#8 | Cisco | 4,100 | 5% | Nov 2021 |
#9 | IBM | 3,900 | 2% | Jan 2023 |
#10 | 3,700 | 50% | Nov 2021 | |
#11 | Better.com | 3,000 | 33% | Mar 2022 |
#12 | Groupon | 2,800 | 44% | Apr 2020 |
#13 | Peloton | 2,800 | 20% | Feb 2022 |
#14 | Carvana | 2,500 | 12% | May 2022 |
#15 | Katerra | 2,434 | 100% | Jun 2021 |
#16 | Zillow | 2,000 | 25% | Nov 2021 |
#17 | PayPal | 2,000 | 7% | Jan 2023 |
#18 | Airbnb | 1,900 | 25% | May 2020 |
#19 | Instacart | 1,877 | -- | Jan 2021 |
#20 | Wayfair | 1,750 | 10% | Jan 2023 |
Layoffs were high in 2020 thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, halting the global economy and forcing staff reductions worldwide. After that, things were steady until the economic uncertainty of last year, which ultimately led to large-scale layoffs in tech—with many of the biggest cuts happening in the past three months.
The Cause of Layoffs
Most workforce slashings are being blamed on the impending recession. Companies are claiming they are forced to cut down the excess of the hiring boom that followed the pandemic.
Additionally, during this hiring craze competition was fierce, resulting in higher salaries for workers, which is now translating in an increased need to trim the fat thanks to the current economic conditions.
Of course, the factors leading up to these recent layoffs are more nuanced than simple over-hiring plus recession narrative. In truth, there appears to be a culture shift occurring at many of America’s tech companies. As Rani Molla and Shirin Ghaffary from Recode have astutely pointed out, tech giants really want you to know they’re behaving like scrappy startups again.
Twitter’s highly publicized headcount reduction in late 2022 occurred for reasons beyond just macroeconomic factors. Elon Musk’s goal of doing more with a smaller team seemed to resonate with other founders and executives in Silicon Valley, providing an opening for others in tech space to cut down on labor costs as well. In just one example, Mark Zuckerberg hailed 2023 as the “year of efficiency” for Meta.
Meanwhile, over at Google, 12,000 jobs were put on the chopping block as the company repositions itself to win the AI race. In the words of Google’s own CEO:
“Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today… We have a substantial opportunity in front of us with AI across our products and are prepared to approach it boldly and responsibly.”– Sundar Pichai
The Bigger Picture in the U.S. Job Market
Beyond the tech sector, job openings continue to rise. Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed a total of 11 million job openings across the U.S., an increase of almost 7% month-over-month. This means that for every unemployed worker in America right now there are 1.9 job openings available.
Additionally, hiring increased significantly in January, with employers adding 517,000 jobs. While the BLS did report a decrease in openings in information-based industries, openings are increasing rapidly especially in the food services, retail trade, and construction industries.
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