[ NNSquad ] Re: New York Times getting ready to charge online readers

[Barry Gold <BarryDGold@ca.rr.com>]

Lauren Weinstein wrote:
> New York Times getting ready to charge online readers
>
> http://bit.ly/5bqmTL  (NY Mag)
>
> The problems, of course, are obvious.  The value of referenced NYTimes
> articles in public forums drops essentially to zero -- there's no
> point in linking to articles that most people will be unable to 
> read -- legally, that is.
>
> And therein is the 800 pound gorilla in the room.  I'd expect to see
> underground free transmissions of NYTimes articles instantly appear in
> a myriad of locations and forms, forcing the Times to play DMCA cop on
> top of everything else in an endless game of Whac-A-Mole.

Good point, and applies to nearly everything that appears -- or can 
appear -- on the web.

To some extent this parallels the problem of American and European 
employees.  If a job can be done anywhere, it will move to wherever 
workers are cheapest -- India, Indonesia, wherever.  If content can be 
anywhere (and, on the web, it can), it will start appearing everywhere, 
and keeping the illegal copies down is a never-ending battle.

At least, until the content owners figure out a business model that 
_works_ in this new world.  I suspect that means that content has to be 
cheap (so the ease of locating the legal copy overrides the savings from 
getting a free but illegal copy) and that the content owners have to 
hope to "make it up on volume".  Fortunately, the production cost of 
additional electonic copies is essentially zero.  Unfortunately, the 
production cost...


> Will they get enough subscriptions to stay afloat using such a model?
> Maybe.  But will this make up for the loss of global readership in a
> non-economic sense overall, especially for their best reporters and
> analysts who want to be read by the most people possible?  Will an
> op-ed in the Times mean as much if it's also behind a pay wall that
> drastically limits its audience?

The problem with the "non-economic sense" is that the NYTimes and other 
content providers *must* take in enough via _some_ business model to 
cover the salaries of all the people involved in producing that content 
-- reporters, photographers, editors, layout experts, etc.

Otherwise, all you get is The Drudge Report -- a bunch of people who 
contribute whatever they feel like, but not with the quality of editing 
and selection and suchlike that goes into a mainstream newspaper/magazine.

> The future will tell.  But one thing's for sure, if the Times goes
> ahead with this kind of plan, they're taking one enormous gamble
> indeed, especially in the current economic climate.

One idea that occurs to me would be to put the first few paragraphs up 
on the "front page" of the website, for free.  These could be linked to, 
searched, etc.  The rest of the article would require a subscription or 
one-time (small) fee to access.

One problem is that the normal credit-card mechanism for handling 
transactions is too expensive.  I don't think you can process a CC 
transaction for less than about $.50.  We need a micropayments system. 
Lindenbucks (L$) come to mind as one possibility, but if I were in the 
e-commerce business I'd see about putting together one that isn't linked 
to a single online world.