The Fate of The Free Newspaper 459
jm92956n writes "We've all become accustomed to the wide availability of newspapers and other media online, almost all of which is available for free. Today, however, The New York Times (free registration required; how ironic!) is running an article that questions the long term viability of that business model. Interestingly, the Times now has more online readers than print readers. Is the era of free news content about to end?"
Payment is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
1). We're already used to it being free
2.) The payment barrier still sucks, i.e.: No valid micropayment system exists (STILL) and people who read their news ont he web generally don't want a subscription to every resource they use. If there were a reasonable micropayment system in place, where content poroviders could charge you a few cents to read an article or access certian content, without hassle to the end-user, this type of thing could work.
How do you get a critical mass using a micropayment system? I'm not touching that one. If I had an answer, I'd already be at 5.) Profit!
It was never free in the first place... (Score:2, Insightful)
We're also in the era... (Score:4, Insightful)
Print papers are actually free, comparitavely.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Web distribution is negligible on daily per-person basis.
The problem here is the failure of online advertising. Somehow during the dotcom boom "per click" payment became the obsession. It seems on the web "branding" or "product awareness" is no longer valuable. There's no perfectly quantifiable way to tell if these sort of ads work in newspapers or television, but if they're not getting the clicks they want, the advertisers say "web advertising doesn't work!!"
I think the obvious answer to this is local data, such as google local. Using your ip address to find your locality and serving up neighborhood ads is the only way for this business model to work-- not just advertising pizza hut, but putting pizza hut's local numbers in the ads you see will help.
But you guys can't have it both ways-- if you block the ads through your browser or your host list, you can't expect free content forever. That's why i don't use anything (other than a popup blocker, of course) to prohibit ads. They are what allow us to consume "free" content.
Remember that next time you block one of these guys. Or go ahead and pay for that content. Slashdot's business model should lead the way!
Irony vs Coincidence (Score:3, Insightful)
My favorite way of helping people realize the difference between irony and coincidence is as follows:
"Irony deals with opposites. Coincidence deals with the same. If a rescue helicopter happened to kill the person they were trying save, that might be a form of irony. The fact you are an idiot, and unable to differenciate between irony and coincidence, my friend, is just a coincidence."
Re:Payment is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think people like micropayments. Flat rate for a lot of stuff would appeal to a lot of people a whole lot more.
Re:Tradeoff? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Payment is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe we need some kind of micropayment standard, where people could pay a small amount if they only want to read a single article on a subscrption only website, and then the payment comes with your ISP fees and the ISP pays whoever you're paying to.
There would need to be some huge protections around this, though... so it's not abused by shady "click OK if you want to pay us 10,000 dollars" kind of websites.
Re:Tradeoff? (Score:5, Insightful)
The weight. The portability. The convenience. Yeah, I can pop open my laptop in bed, or at the kitchen table, but the physical paper is much easier to carry around from bed to kitchen. When on the subway, it's impossible to pop open a laptop to read the news. On the commuter train, you can use a laptop, but with the crowded seats the paper is still more convenient. During lunch if it's nice out I'll head to the park, maybe bring the paper with me. The actual paper is so much easier to carry around and to read than a full sized laptop. No, PDAs just don't work for reading news.
Re:Tradeoff? (Score:5, Insightful)
confilct of interest (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Payment is the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Payment is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's something I use regularly, I'd rather pay a subscription. If it's something I just browse now and then, a micropayment model would be fine.
Re:Tradeoff? (Score:3, Insightful)
If giving away words printed on paper is a viable business model, there's no way you can argue that giving away words on a computer screen isn't. Walking through Union Station in the morning, I see no fewer than three different free daily newspapers. Obviously someone is making money doing this, otherwise they wouldn't keep doing it.
NYT's Announcement? (Score:3, Insightful)
"The New York Times on the Web, which is owned by The New York Times Company, has been considering charging for years and is expected to make an announcement soon about its plans."
Is this story anything more than a trial balloon to see how the Web community might react to a pay-for-use system?
Re:Payment is the problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Payment is the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Easy, if you're Microsoft.
1) Release $5 or $10 worth of bundled micropayments with Longhorn.
2) Siphon a percentage of the transactions.
3) People see value in micropayment driven content and find themselves renewing with their own dime.
4) Profit!
Unfortunately, Microsoft is playing the role of the evil monopoly that can do nothing right. So we'll have to wait until some bright spark does it first and then gets aquired by Microsoft.
You'd think that, with an R&D budget in the billions, we'd have this from Microsoft by now. Is there some sort of rule that prevents large companies from coming up with something innovative on their own?
it will survive (Score:4, Insightful)
Sites can charge for *premium* content, like special features. but for regular headline news, free will be the way to go for quite some time to come
Social link propagation is also a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
A subscription-only site has less value to me since I can't spread the news around. Even if I subscribe to a micropayments scheme, my friends probably don't.
If you close content off from the public, you reduce the value of that content. A subscription site might have great content, but most people will never know about it because no-one else is linking too it.
Free registration still cost you! (Score:2, Insightful)
From Buffy: (Well, Giles actually) (Score:4, Insightful)
Giles: The smell.
Ms Calendar: Computers don't smell, Rupert.
Giles: I know. Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell. Musty and, and, and, and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer, is, it
Ms Calendar: Well! You really are an old-fashioned boy, aren't you?
This explain anything? That said, there really is something about having an acutal piece of paper in your hands. Maybe if electronic paper [parc.com] ever gets developed enought that might help.
Why all the models suck (Score:5, Insightful)
Subscription News v. Google. (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe they can reach a compromise like some sites are doing now (by allowing one free visit) but news sites in particular need to realize that success in these internets depends on search engines.
Cartel Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Online news outlets have had problems supporting themselves with ad revenues (as the paper editions have always done), but that's largely their own fault. Nobody ever expects that readers will throw down the print edition of a newspaper and run off to respond to an ad, but that's exactly what advertisers seem to expect with Web ads. So, they've made them increasingly intrusive and obnoxious, insisting that everyone take notice regardless of interest or relevance. So, the public responded with ad-blocking. If ads in the print version slapped me in the face every time I opened the paper, I'd stop reading it (or at least wear a face mask) too...
NYT Still Has About 1.1 Million Print Subscribers (Score:5, Insightful)
All I see is a greater circulation now that they have an extra 1.4 million online readers.
Nowhere do I see them saying they have LOST print subscribers.
The weight of assumption is too great to claim that those online readers would have otherwise bought the print version - just like assuming people who downloaded free albums from Napster would have bought the CD.
Bottom line = this is 100% additional exposure for NYT, and perhaps other papers like it.
Re:Payment is the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Payment is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Payment is the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Payment is the problem (Score:2, Insightful)
The basic fact of it is, people hate watching the clock. If I pay $20 per month for content, then I can budget for that. I know that I can't get an oops moment and run the bill up, I know that I'm not going to be surprised at the end of the month. I myself subscribe to a few content related websites (ign.com, gamewallpapers.com, etc), but only on a yearly, non-renewing basis.
You must also consider the fact that many of the people online these days aren't techies. They can't fathom why they'd have to pay extra money beyond their ISP fees to access content. I know a LOT of people who complain that $10/month dial-up access is too expensive (their jaws drop when they find out I pay $50/month for DSL). These people aren't going to pay per article.
I don't know if they could make a flat-rate for content system work, but I can tell you now that micropayments will never work, and it's not gonna be b/c of implementation issues.
Re:Payment is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Payment is the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
In addition: Maybe I, as a taxpayer, don't want my nickel going to the liberal/conservative/communist/libertarian rag on the corner, and I only want to financially support the local whack-job-environmentalist newsletter. Why should I be forced to subsidize the others?
HAH! (Score:3, Insightful)
GJC
Where's the irony? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Irony vs Coincidence (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, it is indeed ironic that the New York Times is running a story about how a particular business model probably isn't viable, yet uses that very same business model themselves.
Here's another example: someone who posts a self-important message on slashdot correcting a misuse of the term "ironic," when in fact they are the one who is failing to recognize a legitimate case of irony.
Re:NYT Still Has About 1.1 Million Print Subscribe (Score:2, Insightful)
If they had 1.1 million readers per day in 1993 and today have only 300,000 I would say that is significant. I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing that their average readership is essentially unchanged over the entire time span of the Internet "boom".
The only way they could be seen as losing readership is if you presume the online readers would otherwise pay for the printed version.
Re:Payment is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)