Why The Newspaper Paywall Will Fail
from the it-prevents-real-growth dept
It's no secret that we think newspaper paywalls are a massive disaster in waiting. The number of folks actually willing to pay is a lot smaller than many in the newspaper industry think, and the papers' failure to recognize that they need to add more value rather than take it away by locking up their content pretty much guarantees the widespread failure of the plan. But Kevin Kelleher, over at The Big Money has a nice article that sums up exactly why paywalls will fail:For the sake of argument, let's say that news sites are routinely charging readers in five years. By then, the economy may be substantially healthier than now, and advertisers will be looking for sites with large, loyal readerships to sell their ads on. But that won't include newspapers. They'll be catering to that 10 percent of their online audience willing to subscribe. The rest of the Web will have long stopped linking to--and talking about--their stories. The dollars will flow right past the newspapers' pay walls. And then they'll really be sorry.And that's assuming 10% are willing to pay, which strikes me as high already. One other quibble with Kelleher's piece: he suggests that newspapers stood a better chance if they started trying to charge in 1994, ignoring the fact that many newspapers have tried to put up paywalls in the intervening years, and nearly all of them (with a very small number of high profile exceptions) have discovered that they don't work. Whether it's 1994, 2009 or 2024, it doesn't really matter. The future of online news is not behind a paywall.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: failure, newspapers, paywall
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
When I encounter a register wall I use false information, why the hell would I give a credit card.
A wall is a wall, Designed to keep stuff out!
DUH
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
When I encounter a *free* register wall for a news site I move onto one of hundreds of other sources that require no registration, never to visit the register site ever again.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Thanks havens for bugmenot.com!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No way.
There will always be other news sources that are free and not behind paywalls.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Won't work
Admittedly the web's full of 'unreliable' sources but this aura the papers think they have of being reliable is a farce, a good proportion hastily reword bits of copy pasted releases from other sources, especially online. In that regard they've devalued themselves completely. Few news websites are taken seriously on their own, I believe most people browse the same story on several sites to get 'all the interpretations' not all of the facts.
We need to read between the spin to see the truth in most online papers these days and readers realise this. The last time I looked at a physical newspaper was last month when I packed to move.. the last time I bought one ? Ages back, and that was only for the free copy of Spore's creature creator..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Why Pay For Propaganda?
These latter day Walter Durantys proclaim themselves to be objective reporters of what happens at the circus when they're f***ing the elephants (and donkeys.) Ever notice how many "reporters" are married to government power players, like Andrea Mitchell and Alan Greenspan for two? When they are literally in bed with the other side, what hope do the serfs, er, people have of knowing WTF is actually happening? Fascism - REAL fascism, not the stuff the statist wingnuts were accusing Dubya of doing - is being imposed on America and the watchdogs are lapdogs because they endorse this upending of our culture in favor of something more Soviet in style.
It's ironic that as a commenter on a blog I'm expected to provide links to my citations while the Treason Media presents their product as the Truth to be accepted on faith, no proof required. They say something is so and it is so! How dare anyone question the High Priests of the Temple?!?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Newspaper Paywall vs Changing Music Market
Newspaper corporations see a site like WSJ.com able to charge for news and think that thats the solution and future, failing to recognize that it only works for a very small number of very large newspapers, and probably won't work in the long term. But its still held up as an example of charging for news working and said that everyone should follow the example, despite all the clear evidence that it doesn't work.
Recording companies (and their cheerleaders) have the exact opposite situation where they see smart bands/labels able to find ways to charge for things other than mp3s and they insist after every example that it only works for small bands or big bands or new bands or old bands etc etc, despite all the evidence that these things DO work.
The commonality is, of course, a strong resistance to change.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Paywalls
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
All you need is Google...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So ads are forever going to dominate?
Sure, crappy information will always be free, but people will come around to paying a little bit for the good stuff and I'm willing to do it if someone finds a way that doesn't cannibalize ALL of my CPMs.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]