Will You Pay For Online News?
The Hearst Corporation is getting ready to charge for online content. Other papers are getting ready to charge for online content, too.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) already charges for online content.
The thing that will be interesting to see is if people pay for ordinary news.
WSJ creates a lot of original content, and has a following that relies on what they publish. The average WSJ reader has money. So it's not too surprising that some people will pay a couple bucks a week to have full access to their site.
Regular newspapers, though, tend to just share information--not create a lot of original content--and much of that information can be found elsewhere for free.
The things that always attracted me to newspapers were the sections they really created on their own--not the news that could be found anywhere. A lot of newspapers started cutting back on their niche writing and the things that made them stand out when the industry started falling to its knees.
I hope that by charging for content that they return to really writing and investigating things that set them apart from other papers.
If they don't, I don't see enough people paying for something they can get elsewhere for free.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) already charges for online content.
The thing that will be interesting to see is if people pay for ordinary news.
WSJ creates a lot of original content, and has a following that relies on what they publish. The average WSJ reader has money. So it's not too surprising that some people will pay a couple bucks a week to have full access to their site.
Regular newspapers, though, tend to just share information--not create a lot of original content--and much of that information can be found elsewhere for free.
The things that always attracted me to newspapers were the sections they really created on their own--not the news that could be found anywhere. A lot of newspapers started cutting back on their niche writing and the things that made them stand out when the industry started falling to its knees.
I hope that by charging for content that they return to really writing and investigating things that set them apart from other papers.
If they don't, I don't see enough people paying for something they can get elsewhere for free.