David Carr writes "Why You Should Pay to Read This Newspaper?" (free sign-up req'd), a brief, surface-level exploration of the trend among Internet users to expect that all content is free. David humorously notes that his daughter is a good example of the demographic:
Like many of her age and experience, Erin gets music free, her My- Space account is free, and she can surf for whatever else she needs. She and her twin sister use the timer on the VCR to record their favorite shows and then skip the commercials, just like TiVo (except they would have to pay for that). When I recently bought the paid online version of The U.S. News and World Report's college resource, she and her sister Meagan acted as if I had fallen for a Ponzi scheme.
A few good points about the power that free radio and TV broadcasts have had in the past synch up with the articles general tone - free expands markets, draws in more consumers and is, typically, more valuable than paid content. The piece also explores why some outlets refuse to allow their content to become free on the web, which appears to have more to do with the psychology of the content writers and owners than with any logical, market-driven forces:
...Many print publications - magazines like The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The Economist, along with newspapers like The Wall Street Journal - require their readers to plunk down real money to access their contents. It may or may not cover costs, but it is meaningful revenue in more ways than one...
...Magazines that use subscription and newsstand purchases as an index of "wantedness" typically pay more to acquire readers than they collect, which makes little economic sense. But paid content addresses the issue of time poverty, the real challenge of contemporary print media. If they buy it, the thinking goes, they will read it.
As "Long Tail" writer and Wired Editor-In-Chief Chris Anderson notes in the article,
"Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy and recombine - too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away."
I expect that this tension has many years left to play itself out before standardization for paid and unpaid content is accepted.
I agree with earlpearl above in which he stated that this is a tough matter for all the information and news mediums that were traditionally print based. This battle between free subscriptions allowing unlimited access to data (read: king5.com) and paid subscriptions has been around for quite some time, and yet still, there is no "real" answer.
I attended a business event a couple of months ago hosted by IABC (Internation Association of Business Communicators) Seattle in which the keynote speaker was a "blogger" who became quite famous and quite known because of his blogs; mainly in how he chose the medium to convey his information, not necessarily the content contained therein (unfortunately, his name escapes me at this current moment). Most the night, however, was spent discussing the battle of the new age "blogosphere" or virtual information age working alongside (or possibly replacing - oh no!) traditional print mediums - such as magazines, newspaper, journals, so on and so forth. RSS feeds were discussed, as were pros and cons of both free online subscriptions allowing unlimited access to online content (nwcn.com) and paid subscriptions in order to access online content (wsj.com). Many people had good ideas on how the two should intermingle (if at all), but not many knew where one should draw the line (if at all).
The two should work together. There is no way one medium can (and will) completely and comprehensively cover all it should and needs to, much less absorb the responsibility of another medium while still maintaining its own. As red wine does fettucine alfredo, one complements the other. The so-called "need" to have one replace the other is completely invalid and irrelevant. Think of it this way: there is still something to be said about the process an article must go through from conception to print in order to appear in the day's paper. The same effect cannot be replicated so simply in someone's personal blog.
My take on the matter is simple: know who your readers are. And know how they're getting their information. What's happening in effect is what happened when radio became public, and then television. All are mediums in which to convey information. However, all mediums convey information differently, to drastically different audiences. When a company such as WSJ or The Seattle Times considers what they should do when it comes to free versus paid, it comes down to the painfully simple question of "Who reads what?" Aside from the obvious difference in demographic of web versus print as demonstrated by David, the two need to coincide and work together. There should be no standardized "line" to draw (quite arbitrarily) towards all mediums, when all mediums aren't all the same. Figure out who it is you're trying to speak to. Then you won't be left there wondering why a Harvard Law Professor is writing a letter of complaint that he pays wsj.com to read an article about Janet Jackson's "secret" daughter.
Wow: This is a tough one for all the magazines and newspapers out there. Print media is slowly atrophying. The web is growing.
Is there a financial model for quality writing and commentary on the web that also pays for itself. I believe that Slate is still a money losing proposition.
Even while the subscription or newstand rates for newspapers and magazines is only a small part of their income...with advertising paying the bulk of costs it is a factor still utilized by print media to cover their costs.
An interesting side light to these comments was brought out recently in one source comparing income and profits for Google and The New York Times Company during the 3rd quarter, 2005. Google's revenues of about $1.5-1.6 billion were roughly twice the total of the entire NY Times company (including TV, The Boston Globe and other media. Googles profits of about $300+ million were about 15 times that of profits of the Times.
Paid media like the Times and other sources pay a lot for qualified writers that have worked their way to their positions. Anyone can make their comments available on the Web.
I think you are absolutely accurate in stating this tension will play itself out over many years.