Paying for it
The New York Times announced yesterday that they will be implementing a pay-for-content model. It sounds like they have given it a lot of thought and came up with a good plan. And they aren't rushing in; itis set to be fully implemented in about a year.
Why is this important? We can't run on free content forever. It's the difference between data and raw information; somebody has to be an authoritative gatekeeper, lest we go crazy trying to filter out everything ourselves. And we need a lot of good gatekeepers, and from various points of view. You're not going to get the full story on how people are feeling about political issues if you trust only one source, be it The iTmes or FOXNews. Information may want to be free, but it isn't cheap to have it vetted, categorized, and searched for relevance; that's where our gatekeepers come in. It's akin to the feeling that all music should be fee; if the artists don't get paid for their work, how will new works be paid for?
The NYT is taking a mixed model; a certain amount of content will be free, and users who want to access more will pay a modest fee. This strategy has been successful for the WSJ and other specialty publications, but hasn't been done on many high profile, general interest sites. I think it was a good move, and at least for The Times, will make sense. I'm not as optimistic for some of the other major papers, especially the ones that have been "Zell-ized" by cutting back on important editorial and reporting positions.
PaidContent has a good analysis of the implications of a flexible paywall approach. Here is one of the more important points:
...whatever you do, make sure your NYTimes.com subscription is multi-platform—don’t ask readers to pay extra to get the pretty tablet version. Make that a carrot rather than a stick; even the movie industry is learning that it’s not nice to double-dip your customer. Content you buy once should be available everywhere, end of story.
This cannot be stressed highly enough; media companies that nickle-and-dime their customers by charging separately for each platform will surely alienate them. The cost of repurposing content is trivial compared to creating it. Most people don't see a problem with purchasing an MP3 for their iPod and then wanting to listen to it on their computer; after all, they paid for it. Of course, our screwy copyright laws don't make much sense to begin with. But the content providers must understand they aren't selling physical artifacts (CDs, books, newspapers), but the information they are carrying. I'm constantly shifting where I acquire information; it may start on my Macbook, or desktop, or iPhone, or my son's laptop, or on TV. Why shouldn't I be able to access everything I own (or have paid for the rights to view) from everywhere, seamlessly?
Not an easy trick to pull off for the providers, since ubiquitous access also means it's easy to make copies. With newspapers, this isn't as much as a factor as for things like movies, because news stories for the most part lose much of their value shortly after their initial appearance. But they still deserve protection.
The other problem with a paywall is that if search engines can't find older stories, they cease to exist, or at least on an equal footing with searchable content. Modern paywall sites aren't making this mistake. The archives of a newspaper can have tremendous value to researchers, historians, and folks trying to find an answer to an obscure question. I'm hoping there will be a way for researchers to dig deeply without a high expense; perhaps research licenses will be made available.
As much as we may hate to pay for things, we will all benefit as content providers start finding ways to pay for their work. A lot of the grumbling and griping were hearing is from publishers who are resisting changing to a new model. And part of this new model is that they may have less control over the pricing of the products. Newspapers and book publishers often make obscene profits, well above the norm for other industries. That's their decision, nobody is forcing me to buy from them. But when alternate distribution models emerge, consumers often have more choice. That's why the music companies don't like Apple, and book publishers aren't pleased with Amazon reducing prices; they hate losing that control. But who are they losing it too? Us, their customers. It's about time.
