“if we could determine you were going to be really low propensity this would be an offering and it would kind of be hidden kind of behind the scenes just trying to lower the hurdle to get you into our payment ecosystem and then we could go from there”

Use data to hide a cheap tier from high-propensity buyers

The Washington Post offered a micro-subscription (3-4 stories per month for roughly $2) only to users that data signals identified as low-propensity, not to everyone. Advertising the cheap tier broadly would cannibalize full-price conversions from users who would have paid more. Surfacing a discounted entry product selectively to likely non-converters is a smarter alternative to blanket discounting or a hard paywall for all.