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Will Internet Users Pay for Content?
securitas writes "One of the most challenging business problems is trying to figure out how to make money on the Internet, especially with content. Louis Borders believes that Internet users will pay for online content and explains in an interview the how and why. He is founder of Borders Group, a $3.4 billion company that is the second-largest bookseller in the USA, as well as the billion-dollar online grocer and dotcom flameout, Webvan. Borders thinks he has found the answers and has just launched KeepMedia, an online newsstand subscription service. As someone who has had spectacular success and failure in his career, Borders' latest venture will be an interesting one to watch."
As a /. subscriber I guess I'm proof positive they will pay. Not only do people need to feel that they are actually getting something for the money they're paying, the price also has to be right.
/. being one of the largest content delivery systems on the net, I'd be curious to find out how much revenue they generate based upon subscribers alone.
With
Perhaps Taco or one of the other "powers that be" would like to weigh in on this issue?
Mike
Do you think the freeloader mentality on the Internet is ready for change?
.02
I think it's at the turn of the hockey stick, because it's at about 15 percent of the Web population that's paying for content right now--that's still a low number. Very soon, you'll see that the content that's left to be free is content that will not be trusted; content that has a bias. Just like when you pick up a magazine that's free, and you don't trust it.
Umm, I don't trust sites on the web that I have to pay for. The only sites that I see on the web that have pay-for content are porn sites and I would MUCH rather use free sites like sublimedirectory or thehun.com just to avoid paying for stupid content. At least when I know that it is free and I am disappointed it's fine.
Will you get cooperation from some of the big media conglomerates that already own a collection of big-brand magazines, such as AOL Time Warner and Conde Nast?
Oh, we don't have them at launch, but we're thrilled to have 140 titles. We've had a lot of meetings with them--extremely positive meetings--and I'm sure they'll come into the platform in short order.
You are thrilled to have 140 titles because no one is buying into your dotcom bullshit. If anyone is going to want to pay to read stuff online they are going to do it on that site only. Perusing the titles made me think, wow, this sucks hard. I will stick to news.google.com for now. At least I get free news that is basically interesting, and if it's not on the front page, I know I can quickly search for it.
I see the Googles of the world like the freeways, where you're going from one place to the next, and that's the place to go. They have a very viable business being the main artery across the Internet. Our approach is to be a walled garden, where we bring in this very high-quality content. As a consumer, you would certainly want to use the freeway and the walled garden for different needs.
I (and plenty of others, including NON-GEEKS) see Google as God of the Internet. If I want to find an article, I search google and it finds it fast (including newspapers, magazines on the web, etc). Why in the world would I want to search your index of pay-for stuff (and limited to 140 titles currently) when I can use google to search 140+ titles on a SINGLE TOPIC in seconds? This idea is going back to Library's and making you pay to use them. I don't think it's going to work.
I just think that Google has cornered the market on this type of crap long before this guy could. news.google.com provides what everyone needs for EVERY media type.
I will stick to free content thank you.
Just my worthless
We are exceedingly cheap. We expect FREE on the internet. It's been burned into our heads since the dot com boom. At one point, "free" topped "sex" in web searches. We think if it's digitized and non-physical, we should have access to it and be able to copy it. We can't grasp the concept of monetary value for digital things. We can't wrap our brains around the idea that those digital things took work to create, and people that made them want to be paid for them. Since we can get it so quickly and easily over the internet, we just cant comprehend that.
If MS ever started selling Office exclusively as a download, they'd lose millions of dollars. Because Office just wouldn't feel like a real product to them. Put a CD in that consumers hand, though, and they're more willing to pay for it.
With the exception of Apple users, who will do whatever Stevie tells them to (buy music at the Apple Store! On your Ipod! Now!), most denizens of the internet are, let's be blunt, cheap bastards.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Quoting ESR:
If you want to describe a feeling of comfort and satisfaction, by all means say you are ``content'', but using it as a noun to describe written and other works of authorship is worth avoiding. That usage adopts a specific attitude towards those works: that they are an interchangeable commodity whose purpose is to fill a box and make money. In effect, it treats the works themselves with disrespect. Those who use this term are often the publishers that push for increased copyright power in the name of the authors (``creators'', as they say) of the works. The term ``content'' reveals what they really feel.
As long as other people use the term ``content provider'', political dissidents can well call themselves ``malcontent providers''.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
I dont go to many sites that employ staff, I might drop a few quid to a site I really like that is struggling to pay hosting bills, but the best sites in life are free. Charge money, and I'll go elsewhere. I used to run a 2000 visits-a-day site back in 99, I did it for fun. One of the biggest sites I goto now is trektoday, with no paid-for staff. Once you start charging by the page, I'll think "Is this really worth it?", I'll stress over every click, doesnt matter if its 1 cent a page or 0.001 cents. Its akin to paying per minute, or byte, for internet access.
You'll see people start paying for content, when distributers start pricing it correctly. Sometimes I only visit a site once, maybe twice. Do I want to buy a 20-50 dollar a month subscription to get the article I'm interested in? Obviously not.
However, I would be willing to make a 50 or 75 cent investment in a good article or two. Micropayments could be a huge boon to the net. Paypal or Visa or Mastercard ought to get their act(s) together and make it happen already
About the only way that I think I would happily toss down a monthly $fee for online content would be to have the content shipped to me on a (monthly, quarterly, whatever) basis on cd as well as the access.
;)
HTML is small, dynamic content can be shoe-horned into static, and you can always look back on the good old days (think LWN on cd. or Wikipedia, relive your first p0st over and over again on Slashdot the 99-01 collection, whatever).
I think I would even pay a premium for such as service as well (20 bucks a year for online access, or, 40 and we ship you a quarterly cd as well!)
Myself, I see the net being a little too ephemeral to be chucking down cash for something you will never get to touch or keep a library of for your own use.
My 2 cents. Now, time to go read the article!
and people generally don't pay. We tried it as a last resort before shutting our site down awhile ago. The only way that worked for us to make money was to syndicate our content onto other web sites. We did pretty good business until the .com bust killed that. Another avenue we pursued was advertising but we didn't have many people on staff and chasing ad dollars (at the time anyways) was a full-time salesman's job. We were all techies. Needless to say, we didn't get many ad contracts. We also tried joining "networks" (think Home and Garden "Channel" on something like MSN)and that was a nightmare. Obviously, we weren't very good businessmen either but it was fun for awhile. People just don't expect to pay on the internet, there's simply too much free stuff.
If you're going to charge people for online only content, it's really got to be more that just what's available in print. Slashdot is not available in print and it is more than just news, it's an experience of discussion with a great deal of other like-minded people. I am part of a group that runs a successful non-porn (well maybe some) pay website. In talking to our members, the main reason people subscribe to our site and keep renewing their subscriptions is the experience, not just the content. The experience being the activity in the various message forms, the ability to rate and comment on every piece of content, the ability to parametrically search and access all content for the past 6 years (online publicaitons rarely offer that), the ability to see who's currently online, etc.
Sorry for the shameless plug, but it illustrates the point that you really can't charge for *just* content presented in the same way as print. I don't believe Salon executed successfully using this model, and I can't see how anyone else could either.
Just my 2 cents ...
We built a site for the New York Review of Books years ago with an online subscription model and it's been very successful.
The key -- that some folk seem to miss -- is that you need content that people are willing to pay to access. All too often the content provided by a subscription site isn't worth the price even if it was free. It also helps if your publication's demographic actually has money.
It's like television, which survives off ads. The only problem is we've learned that advertising on the net doesn't work very well. I think with clever, amusing, and less annoying ads, that could change. Also, I think most people base the success of an ad on the number of click-throughs; this is not logical, especially if you have an ad similar in nature to a print ad, where a click-through is not necessary to gain your interest in the product/service.
The Internet is still pretty young, and the Web is even younger. In time, hopefully, things will flesh out and new business models will emerge. I think for now, though, the industry is still trying to recover from the burst tech bubble.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
But I won't give my credit card number to a thousand different sites. I will not subscribe to a bunch of sites (recurring payments or minimum payments greater than what I'll use on my visit), and I will not enter my personal information over and over and over again. And when it comes to downloadable books, software and music, I want that content downloadable forever, or the deal's off.
Until there's a standard for centralized payments (it's fine if there are multiple payment centers, so long as they all speak the same protocol), I'm going to use Google to hunt for alternate sites for information and entertainment.
Until downloadable content is as loss-proof as a book or a CD (meaning my library doesn't go away if a hard drive goes away without a backup or I run out of space and have to kill a folder of tunes I won't listen to for a few months), it doesn't feel like you actually own anything. If you have a permanent account with permanent access, you feel like you've purchased something, and it feels like your money's afforded you a little certainty. If you only get one, two or three downloads or a 30-day cap and then you're screwed, it's just as fulfilling (and often less trouble) for others to load up bittorrent and grab a few movies and CD images. The whole download-limited purchase thing seems really short-sighted.
- Same or similar, comparable, slightly lower quality content cannot be available elsewhere for free
- They have a meaningful value proposition (people will feel like they're getting what they're paying for)
- The economy (and their current income level) allows them to have the disposable income for it...as most online content is not vital to have
A prime example (although it's not "online") is HBO. I pay an extra $10/month for it because its content is (imho) that much better than the rest of what TV has to offer. If an online service can get people to feel the same way (that their content is that much better than the rest of what the Internet has to offer) no doubt people will pay.I regularly post to Slashdot. I am essentially a micro-content provider to Slashdot. I have posted over 300 comments, many of them high Karma scorers. If I made, say, one cent per Karma point, then I would be about 3 dollars better off by now! Woohoo!"
Maybe a site like Slashdot could charge "micropayments" but rebate to it's users that have high moderation. This may have an effect on eliminating troll posts and encourage well thought out responses.
I pride myself in the high moderation I get here & substantial page views/responses I get elsewhere. I mainly use this site & other Mac Chat/Forums sites as a way to "micro-advertise" my website & my eBay auctions. I figure, if people think I say something interesting I must be selling something interesting ;)
Another take: If you actually sell something on eBay OR leave feedback for a transaction you are rebated or awarded a micropayment. This way, even eBay could CHARGE for content. Buy - you are deducted a micropayment - leave feedback - awarded/rebated a micropayment
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I've been using Yahoo BillPay for over a year now at $7 a month, and I'd never, EVER go back to writing checks and mailing bills. In fact, I visit a mailbox once every 3 months because I now handle all business and correspondence online. I still have all these old 34 cent stamps to which I have to add a sheaf of 1 cent stamps in order to mail anything.
I also pay extra for Usenet access from a company that is dedicated to it. Gotta have those complete multi-part binaries, don't ya know. :) At least until the RIAA eventually goes there. :(
And I pay a little extra for an email/web space combo.
So I, personally, have no problem paying for services even thought I'm skeptical about paying for content. That's why I don't complain about advertising unless a page gives me more than one popup at a time. That's like two commercials playing at the same time on TV.
--- Ban humanity.
Sorry, but it costs to create content. Even worse, it costs to deliver content (bandwidth, etc.).
./ isn't as a "contributor." I am a consumer of their product. I am consuming ./'s bits and bandwidth as I type. Most of all, I am consuming the large audience that slashdot as build up over the years for my little egotistical jaunts into cyberspace.
Most the people I know who've delivered quality content on the net rue their decision. Blogs aren't quality content.
Then there are the tons of reeders who put up put up pourly edited posts, and think, gosh look at this wonderful content I just contributed. I should get all that expensive, extremely time consuming work other people did for free. I don't buy the argument that you can measure the quality of content buy the volume of werds.
The way I see it. My participation in
The act of my typing out my pourly conceived and incomplete thoughts is an act of consumption. It is a tasty little ego trip I go through. Now lets wait and see if I get mod points...delicious little mod points.
Now, I should mention that when I speak of content, I'm speaking of things like music, movies, text, etc. Those things lose most, if not all, of their value once they become digital and reach the internet. So what can be sold?
Experiences. Slashdot is an experience, live broadcasts (think pay-per-view) are experiences, chats with famous people are experiences, etc, etc, etc.
Certain types of things DO have value on the internet, just not all of them. What is currently going on right now as the internet comes of age is that people are experimenting with it to see what sells and what doesn't. Not everything is guaranteed to sell, in fact, you may ruin your chance of selling a physical version of it as well if you unsuccessfully try to sell something on the net (RIAA again). Its a big gamble, and there will be lots of casualties, but eventually we will learn what can and cannot be sold on the internet.
A good example of how this works is in Snowcrash. Hiro does a search for something with the librarian, and filters for free content only. Yet when he needs something rare or specific, he has to pay for it. In fact, a whole profession (gargoyles) has sprung up around this business of rare/hard to obtain/unique information. Well, just my two (or fifty) cents worth.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
As proven time and time again. I implemented a subscription service at IcarusIndie.com for high bandwidth areas of the site in January and have made a nice amount of money. I'm not getting rich off of it but it's enough to know it's a feasible idea. My site isn't large enough yet (and doesn't have a fast enough connection) to expect a large number of subscribers.
The problem is just like any other business, most people just slap up a site, throw some crap on it and expect people to pay. My site was entirely free for as long as my connection could take it. Which was 2 years. I then went through my log summaries, figured out what was taking up the most bandwidth and put it behind htaccess and now sell accounts to access those files.
Another thing is that you can't lock everything down. Otherwise people aren't going to be finding your site. I made sure to leave a bunch of good stuff freely available even though it takes quite a bit of bandwidth. The site is also diverse in it's content to attract people for quite a number of reasons.
The other thing is that most businesses fail. It's not surprising that there are a few big money makers and a lot of no money makers. Setting up a business anywhere takes talent and a product people will pay for. Most people don't have either.
Ben
Work Safe Porn