An alternative subscription model that I've always liked is Linux Weekly News (lwn.net) which publishes all premium content openly after a week behind paywall. (In my mind I like to call it "Freshwall", ie. paying for fresh content.) News quickly gets old after all.
How successful is it as a model for cash flow compared to the others? I can wait a week to see the kernel benchmarks or whatever so I don't see why anyone would subscribe if not to suppose it rather than need it. I never used the site I'm just assuming it's like phoronix.
I unfortunately don't know any details other than it seems to be working. The content they have is highly in depth, and the comments section is excellent.
My experience was that I started reading the articles as a non subscriber. Because I enjoyed it I began visiting the site more and more. After some time it started to annoy me that I had to wait to read the latest content, and that's when I started subscribing. These days I read it less frequently, but I still subscribe to support the site.
