Charging for content

There's an interesting article in the New York Times about charging for news content.

Personally, I would be willing to pay a reasonable fee to access my daily fix of news, but I'm not going to do it until I have to. For example, the Wall Street Journal currently charges for reading anything beyond a short teaser; I like the Wall Street Journal but I don't subscribe because most of what they offer is available elsewhere for free. For example, there's the article mentioned above.

I understand that the traditional press – the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the other large daily news outlets – are between a rock and a hard place. They desperately need the revenue from their online audience to be viable financially, but they're afraid that if they charge to view their content everyone will just go somewhere else. In fact, the New York Times charged for part of their content between 2005 and 2007 and gave up on the idea.

This mentality that you can find whatever you need on the Internet for free is a serious issue. We're already seeing it lower the quality of information available as the newspapers are forced to cut their staff to stay afloat. On the other hand, there's a huge potential revenue stream out there if they can just figure out how to tap into it.

The American public has a long history of demanding mediocrity. Take American beer – it's cheap and plentiful, and extraordinarily mediocre. Now this trend is extending worldwide as the Internet exposes the world to the same pressures that Americans have seen for decades. Yet there's the small segment that demands better quality – microbrewery beer or gourmet coffee – and is willing to pay for it. It will be interesting to see which population segment wins in the newspaper wars.