There are notable differences between those apps and the People product, however.
First, People has a far larger audience, so even at the same conversion rate People should have generated more downloads.
More importantly, Dotdash Meredith has almost certainly invested more resources into the People app than Vox Media did into its recent launches.
While People is creating custom content for its app, having a camera crew tail its newsroom to produce The Fourth Wall, the Eater and New York Magazine apps are both populated with the same content as their websites. That means the Vox Media apps likely have a lower monthly overhead, so their existence is easier to justify.
The People app’s large, dedicated team of 70 also entails a higher operating cost.
So while Dotdash Meredith is in healthy financial shape, the publicly traded company could face scrutiny for underwriting such a sizable operation just to produce content for an audience of 5,000.
