I’ve been using 9to5MacBreakingTechNews for a few years and it’s always been easy to use and offers a better experience than the website in my opinion. However, it had not been updated in a while so I was thrilled to see it listed to be receiving an update. The look is new and modern, which was a welcome change. However, they made one big change: upon clicking on an article, it tells you that you only have 3 more full articles that are ad-free. This wouldn’t be an issue except after you read 3 full articles, they require you to either subscribe to their premium service for $1.99 a month or use the web browser to read the article. There’s no way to see the full article on 9to5MacBreakingTechNews and just deal with ads.
This is a huge step backwards and will cause me to delete 9to5MacBreakingTechNews entirely and stop reading their website. I can deal with having ads on the page, I just don’t see the need to use 9to5MacBreakingTechNews if it’s telling me to use the web browser if I don’t want to subscribe to their service. $24 a year isn’t breaking the bank, it’s the principle of it where the change came out of left field and gives the user one impression before revealing the truth.