Everything is free, and will stay that way
Every Aube article can be read in full, with no account and no paywall — that is true today and it will not change. Which leaves an honest question: who pays? This page answers it — where the money will come from, where it will go, and what we rule out to earn it.
Why we exist
We started Aube because we love technology. Because we believe in what it actually brings people: better treatment, another way to get around, light in a house that had none. And because we allow ourselves to dream of a better future — and to recognise it in every small everyday step forward.
The news is very good at covering what burns. That leaves the other half of the story — what is starting, what is working, what is rolling out quietly — and that half is ours. With the figures, the dates and the sources that go with it: believing in what technology can do is not believing everything said about it.
- The numbers are the sources’ own. We choose the subjects; the orders of magnitude, the dates and the names come from the documents listed at the foot of the page.
- The “so what?” question. Every article answers it: what does this change, for whom, and from when?
- Enough to judge for yourself. A maturity badge, from lab to rollout, and the number of independent sources telling the same story.
- Corrections are visible. When we get something wrong, the correction is public and dated.
Our sources
Every source behind an article is listed at the foot of the page, with its language, its date and a direct link to the original. We read well beyond Europe and North America — batteries, solar and electric vehicles are largely a Chinese, Japanese and Korean story — and wherever we can we go back to the document it all started from: the press release, the scientific paper, the public dataset.
Translations of an article into another language are machine-made: they carry a label, and the original text stays one click away.
How the paper will pay its way
A newspaper costs money, and we would rather say in advance where it will come from. One thing is certain: never from reading. Everything we publish will stay readable in full, by everyone, for free.
This is the first piece, and it is coming soon: anyone who wants to help the project will be able to give, once or regularly, whatever amount they choose. Anyone who would rather just read will be every bit as welcome.
Never to read. If we one day build extra features that take real work and real resources, they may be offered by subscription — to those who also want to support the paper another way. The articles themselves will stay open to all.
In future, an article may be sponsored. It will say so, at the top of the page. And it will stay within our line: no subject we would not have covered anyway, no lies, nothing that does not genuinely interest our readers — simply a story we give more prominence.
Where the money will go
The hours spent reading, checking and writing — the real cost of a newspaper.
What it takes to let every article be read in the language of whoever opens it.
The server, the source collection, the archive: everything that has to run for the page to open.
What we will never do
- Never a paywall: an article you start is an article you finish, and none will be reserved for those who pay.
- No countdown, no “only 2 articles left this month”.
- No sponsored article that hides what it is, and none that says anything other than what we hold to be true.
- Stopping a donation or a subscription will take one click, with no form built to keep you.
Support opens soon
Nothing is live yet: we would rather open donations the day the paper keeps its promise every single day. Until then, the best way to help is to read, to comment, and to pass on an article that taught you something.