Pay Walls

[poliphilo]

The pay walls have gone up at The Times and The Sunday Times. Goodbye guys, it was nice knowing you.

Of course Rupert Murdoch is entirely within his rights to charge for content, but I think he's miscalculating. He's an old bloke and he doesn't understand the Net. The old newspapers no longer have a monopoly on news and comment- and if they ask us to pay for what we've become accustomed to getting for free, we'll simply go elsewhere.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how things work out. 

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Yup, I agree - I think this is a disastrous decision. (For him, anyway!)

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

The paywalls never came down at the Wall Street Journal, another Murdoch property. It's (possibly not coincidentally) one of the few newspapers in the U.S. that's doing well.

I don't mind paying for content; I suspect that eventually we will find ourselves returning to the old AOL model, in which you pay for access but some middleman assembles the content.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

The NYT did a pay model a few years back and lost money, because people can easily get the news elsewhere for free. I wonder what is different about this model that makes them think it will work.

I didn't see pay well on the site this morning.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Agreed! We can simply go elsewhere. Actually, my provider gives me daily news and weather, etc. as part of my internet connection fee. Why should we have to pay twice?