Blendle, which is often described as the “iTunes for journalism,” made its debut in the U.S. on Wednesday with the New York Times and Wall Street Journal among the high-profile publications on the pay-per-story app.
Blendle sells access to articles across various newspapers, magazines and websites for as little as 9 cents each, and even offers a refund if a customer isn’t satisfied with a particular purchase.
The Economist, Financial Times, Advertising Age, Newsweek, Barron’s, Washington Post, New Yorker and Mother Jones are also among the publications featured on the Blendle site.
Back in 2014, the New York Times and Axel Springer Digital Ventures agreed to invest 3 million euro ($3.8 million) in Series A financing of then-startup Blendle in exchange for 23 percent of the company.
Blendle was started in early 2014 by former journalists Alexander Klöpping and Marten Blankesteijn.
“It’s become completely normal to pay for music, with Spotify. It’s become completely normal to pay for movies, with Netflix,”Klöpping told Politico. “Yet I don’t have a single friend who pays for journalism.”