Slashdot Mirror
New York Times Exploring how to Charge for Content
Mr. Christmas Lights writes "According to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times is
mulling subscription for Internet Archives. It doesn't appear that the free (but subscription required - BugMeNot to the rescue!) ability to read NYT articles less than a week old would change. However, instead of paying $2.95 per article for stuff that is more than a week old, one idea being floated is an annual fee of $49.99 for unlimited access to anything in the last year." (More below.)
Mr. Christmas Lights continues "The WSJ has been pretty successful with their online subscriptions - over 700,000 people currently pay $79 ($39 if you get the print edition) a year for full online access of the last 30 days of articles - the story above happens to be in their public area. But they are a notable exception, with media organizations struggling to charge for News now that it is widely available for free on the Internet. For example, Slashdot recently discussed the AP's plan to charge members to post content online. Will the "GoogleZon" end up replacing the 4th Estate as depicted in the entertaining and informative 8 minute EPIC video?"
Or we could just explore other sources of news than the New York Times. I can sympathise with their need for revenue, but they are certainly not worth $50 a year for me to access, and certainly not worth $2.95 per article.
They should only charge for articles that are true, or where the reporter actually did the work, instead of sitting at home in his flat in Brooklyn smoking dope.
With the NYTimes vast news archive they have the potential to be one of the best sources of past and current news via google.
Remember, google is based on linking. Right now, no one links to the NYTimes unless it's today's article. If they allowed free access to their entire past archive, people would be posting links all the time (ex, an anti-Bush site would have a series of links about him from the past few years). This would translate into advertising revenue for the Times and more internet clout in general.
The way they've set it up now, this doesn't exist. And I don't believe there is a big market for paying for old news (not that big anyway). Students and researchers use libraries, people at home use Wikipedia or whatever.
The NYTimes should be working to be THE information news resource of world events.
In the offline world, newspapers and magazines charge for the current issues while the archives are freely available through libraries. Why should it be reversed in the online world?
It's completely backwards to make the current week free and the archives Pay-per-view or subscription-only. It makes much more sense to charge a subscription to the current news (whether to access the current day, the current week, or the current month), and make the older stuff freely available. First of all, there's a lot more people interested in today's news than in last year's news, meaning revenues would be higher. (That means more money for the low IQers in the audience.) It fits in line with the offline business model. It meets the customer's expectations better. And it makes the whole site more Internet-friendly.
Frankly, I don't understand why more sites don't follow that plan. Charge for access to the current week (the most valuable content on your site on any given day) and, after that, let the bloggers and everyone else have at it for free.
Why should I pay? How about I just goto the library and pull out the article
One of these people who's time is worthless. For the rest of us, spending $50 for 1 year's access is a better deal than spending an hours time going to the library for an article.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased