“When the Post‘s algorithm evaluates the ideal subscription price to charge for a reader, Cian says, the company “can calculate in real time a high level of complexity based on massive data they acquire throughout the year, based on all the data that they know about their subscribers and when they did or did not renew their subscription.” Your rate might come down to assumptions that the algorithm makes about your financial status based on how you access digital articles. “If you use an Apple product, usually people increase prices because they assume that if you have an iPhone, you may have a higher income than if you have an Android,” he adds. “They know exactly from your IP address where you are reading most of the time, so they can access through Zillow how much is the average cost of a house in that area [and] probably infer really quickly your income.” Readers’ usage of the Post‘s services might also play a role in how much they’re charged. “Users that read a lot may need to be paying more because they actually use more of the services—you can say, probably, they value our services more so we can charge them a little bit more,” Cian says. Whereas, for subscribers who don’t read as many articles to begin with, “maybe you don’t want to affect their pricing too much, because otherwise you stand to lose them.””
