Slashdot Mirror
More Online Publishers Inching Toward Paid Content
mattmcal writes "TheStreet.com reported its first quarterly profit with $18 million of its $26 million in revenues coming from subscriptions. WSJ.com is now up to 686,000 online subscribers. Several publishers have failed to build successful paid models in the past, such as the San Jose Mercury News, but subscription revenue is crucial during ad market dips. More and more publishers are testing these waters now that the evidence of success has become real. Washingtonpost.com and Media Guardian UK both announced recently they will require registration. This may be just the beginning of a mad rush to drop a registration gate on the major news sites."
This may not be a complete disaster, as a it will provide a stimulation to the micropayment technologies, which could be useful to subsidise low cost environments such as open source content projects e.g. wikipedia.
The marginal cost to the really big (Fox, CNN) and/or publicly funded institutions (BBC) of providing web-based news is probably pretty low, and it is effectively a loss leader to bring people into their portal, so there is not really an incentive to charge, so I don't think free general news is disappearing any time soon.
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
Or, you could just go to the library and read the paper for free.
As someone who reads through news every single day of the year, I'd love an option to offer small payments for content that I specifically want. If I was paying $5.00 for each news article I convert to a PDF, I'd be broke in no time. Slashdot has talked about micropayments before.
Before a content site decides to put up any kind of barrier to getting the content, they'd better make sure the value will drive people past the barrier.
An example comes to mind in the local news scene... I used to visit one of the Web sites for a local TV station as a way to keep informed about local events. Their content was "pretty good" -- better, as I saw it then, than their competitors. Then they started requiring registration... it was free, but they wanted your personal info. I turned away and haven't gone back -- the value of their content was not sufficient to push me past the privacy barrier.
One of the reasons I've been hesitant to use any revenue-related barriers in the Open Music Registry is because I don't think the value would support it, for the site as it is now. So, until I have the time to build in features that people might pay for (if that ever happens), I have to hope for donations and ad click-throughs.
No Laughing Allowed!
If you weren't providing revenue for them, why should they care if you stop visiting?
It's nice to pretend that all these sites exist solely for our benefit, but they don't. They have to make money somehow, and if advertising doesn't cut it, how many other options are there?
I appreciate sites like CNN, Yahoo, etc letting me view their content free. But I don't feel that I'm entitled to their content, because, of course I'm not.
With daily repeated references to NYT, and almost as frequent references to WashPost, /. story submitters are certainly doing there part to help out the big media cartels.
/. readers will always opt for the blue pill. Some will wake up. Which are you?
No problem. The cartels can't ignore Google. And I can get their stories through Google News. Better yet, virtually none of the media cartels are original anymore. They exist as mere web content providers for AP, UPI, Reuters. Plus a few local/capitol reports thrown in to throw the scent off. The good part about this is if any of the registration sites regurgitate a news story from one of the wires, it is also picked up by thousands of regional and local news sites, the vast majority of which don't require registration. The same goes for the few original "news" pieces they report on. The thousands of other sites pick it up for their local editions, and the content is still available without registering.
Google News is your friend. And the friend of freedom, by freeing information, instead of attempts to control information as it comes out of NYT, WashPost, and others.
And WashPost doesn't render in my browser correctly anyway. The main column is still offset about 800 pixels to the right, forcing me to scroll over.
The only real informational value coming from the NYT and the WashPost anyway is to document the bias of the two outlets, made easier when comparing their headlines, first paragraphs, and top of fold stories against the rest of the media outlets on Google News.
Registration? No biggie. Go here (and read the same story from different sources) for a more balanced view.
Some
There are important differences between the services offered by the Wall Street Journal online and the Washington Post online that would allow the first to charge a subscription and the second not to. The WSJ offers relatively unique business-specific information and has no close competitors. Their news and analysis are essential to conducting business, at least in the US. By contrast, the Washington Post offers excellent coverage of general news, but with many close substitutes such as the NYT, CNN, and the BBC among others. Some of those competitors unlikely to ever charge an online subscription (CNN, BBC), so the Washington Post can't either (isn't it nice when competition works?)
It's all about demand elasticity. The freely available NYT charges a fee to access their archived articles because those who use that service are typically involved in some research project, and their demand for information is inelastic (not too many substitutes for the NYT's extensive archives). On the other hand, The for-pay WSJ makes its editorial content available for free at opinionjournal.com, because nobody would pay to read editorials; as they say, opinions are like a-holes, everybody's got one.
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.