Last week the Boston Globe published a feature about a lesbian bar in western Massachusetts that still required KN-95 masks, but decided to make Saturdays mask-optional in the hopes of attracting more patrons. The decision split the community and resulted in drama on a cosmic scale.
It’s the kind of piece that makes you smile, shake your head and then suddenly choke on your can of Cola Zero spit, cough and laugh at the same time as one protagonist decided enough was enough and proceeded to enroll in clown school.
The story, like all others on the Boston Globe, was placed behind a paywall. It generated a thousand new subscriptions on the first day, “several thousand“ within seventy-two hours, “many thousands“ by this week, according to the Globe.
In the subscription business, you’d call the Boston Globe a “mature product”, which means it’s a 150+ year old brand that had a digital paywall for 15 years. This makes this result simply incredible. But it’s nowhere near the record.