Boston Globe drops paywall

Assuming all 60,000 subscribers are paying full price (about $200 a year), that's $12 million per year in revenue. That would be enough to support a 240 person newsroom with everybody making $50,000 and no benefits….and nothing else.

 

What are the technological issues with a paywall? A lot of sites are restricted to members. Why is a newspaper so difficult and let direct links to get by the paywall?

 

Sure, but outside of NYT, who's had any luck with subscriptions?

The Globe doesn't cover all of New England anymore, it's primarily withdrawn to inside I-495 (and really, inside 128). I don't know what the population base is inside 495. I'll guess 3 million. 60,000 may be a fraction of that, but it's a lot better penetration rate than others who've tried it.

I'd be intrigued by what Dick suggested, an app-only model, and see how a suburban daily in a high-end population base, like Boston or San Francisco, did with it.

 

Yep. This has been my approach. But even though my local paper gives you a certain number of free views, it has caused me to not go to their site unless it's something I REALLY want to read. I used to hit the maximum in a matter of a day or two. Now, I probably read only a handful of stories online per month. I'd be curious to see how the paywall has affected page views.