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Magazine Publisher Time Inc. Partners With Coinbase to Accept Bitcoin

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:42 PM
Neil Sardesai
Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:42 PM

Magazine Publisher Time Inc. Partners With Coinbase to Accept BitcoinMagazine publisher Time Inc. announced today its partnership with Coinbase to accept bitcoins for select magazine subscriptions. Readers of Fortune, Health, This Old House, and Travel + Leisure can now pay for their digital and print magazines with BTC. This makes Time Inc. the first major magazine publisher to accept bitcoin, and another major corporation to accept bitcoin after others like Microsoft. Other online publications have previously experimented with Bitcoin pay walls with services such as the BitWall. Many in the Bitcoin community are hoping that Time Inc. starts using digital currency for micro transactions, as that would be a great validation of one of Bitcoin’s killer apps.

 

Also read: Microsoft Now Accepts Bitcoin Through BitPay

It’s Time to Accept Bitcoin

Tell Us How You Want to PayTime Inc. reaches over 130 million readers each month through its digital and print subscriptions of People, Sports Illustrated, InStyle, Time, Real Simple, Southern Living, Entertainment Weekly, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, Fortune, and more. While bitcoin subscriptions are currently limited to Fortune, Health, This Old House, and Travel + Leisure, Time Inc. hopes to bring bitcoin to its other publications in the coming months. Lynne Biggar, Executive Vice President of Consumer Marketing + Revenue at Time Inc. said:

“We are always looking for ways to make it easier for consumers to engage with our brands and this pilot program will give bitcoin users a seamless and simple way to purchase subscriptions.”

“We hope to expand our partnership with Coinbase in the coming months to create more opportunities to provide greater value to our customers.”

CEO and co-founder of Coinbase Brian Armstrong also remarked:

“For a major publisher like Time Inc. to embrace bitcoin sends an important message to both its readers and to the broader media community.”

“In addition to providing consumers with an easy, convenient way to pay for their subscriptions, it also opens the door for Time Inc. and publishers like it to familiarize themselves with the Bitcoin technology and explore new applications across the industry.”

A New Business Model

Accepting bitcoin also provides Time Inc. the opportunity to explore new business models such as micropayments for content rather than relying on traditional subscriptions. Micropayments aren’t feasible with traditional payments processors due to high fees and other restrictions. But with bitcoin, micropayments are simple, and Coinbase already provides an API for tipping.

“We look forward to partnering with Time Inc. to explore [micropayments] and other new applications of Bitcoin in the future.”

Images from Shutterstock and Time Inc.