Charging for content — who whines the loudest?

Link: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

 

Our far-off readers and the local, self-styled "media critic" would likely throw a fit. Between our sister paper and our joint, we have a print monopoly around here (Big Statewide Paper doesn't get out here much), so the suits wouldn't mind. Single-copy sales might get a bump.

The readers? I'm not sure they'd notice. Half of them struggle with basic English.

 

Charge people to post on message boards. Egos are too big to keep opinions on the sideline just because of a few bucks.

And, as a secondary benefit, all the hate language would disappear.

 

Re: Charging for content — who whines the loudest?

Disagree with the second part, Simon. When we were still passing the hat to pay our server expenses, a few of the people who contributed decided that they'd bought the right to be assholes. That sense of entitlement brought down a crapstorm on our heads whenever we attempted to moderate comments that violated our TOS; in the end, I believe we refunded a couple of donations and not-so-politely asked those people to go away. Some -- hopefully most -- of the BS would disappear if you switched to a pay-to-play model, but definitely not all.

That said, I agree with a post earlier in this thread: if Scout and Rivals can charge for access, why can't a real news outlet? And e-editions with a subscribers-only login are a great idea. I have no desire to drop the print subscription to my local paper, and online access to the entire product -- instead of the two or three stories per day they currently post -- would give me even more incentive to keep writing that check.

 

Charge for message boards and people will find a different board to go to. There's enough of them out there.

 

The question at my shop is what would the reaction be if we STOPPED charging for content.

I'm sure the short answer would be people would less frequently ask me to write stories I've already written...

But I'm less inclined to criticize my shop right now than I would have been a year ago. The bulk of American papers aren't charging and we all see the cuts. We charge and we haven't been cutting as much. I largely suspect that those are unrelated issues — we are a family-owned with an aging population and I suspect those are factors in our less rapid decline in advertising and circulation — but I can't say FOR SURE that they are unrelated.

 

WHO has done the pay-for model successfully?

The answer isn't the WSJ. They're considering pulling the plug on pay-for, just like everybody else has.

 

Re: Charging for content — who whines the loudest?

If everything appeared in a PDF ... can you still cut/paste? Maybe I'm wrong, but several PDF files that I've opened do not allow you to highlight text.

EDIT: OK, maybe it's all of them. ???

 

No, I can copy/paste from any PDF, as far as I know.

But as far as this goes, aren't we still just talking plagiarism? I would think that standard still applies.

 

Re: Charging for content — who whines the loudest?

My opinion is this: When I Google for information (and yes, Google is my first stop to search for just about anything where I don't already know exactly where to look) and I come across a site that requires me to pay to view, I go back to Google and find the best site for the same information that does NOT charge.

So if you charge for content, I'll simply ignore you and get the information elsewhere for free. That means the only thing I'll be willing to pay for is information I KNOW is unique to your Site. And how do you spread the word that you have information worth paying for that you can't get anywhere else?

That is the struggle of news-gatherers on the Web.

 

The ability to copy text and/or graphics from a PDF file is determined by how the PDF's security functions are set up when it's generated.

 

Oh. OK.

Fact remains ... and again, I think we're talking about plagiarism ... the only difference is in ease of transferring the copy from its source. If somebody wants to do it, they could do it before and they can do it now.