Free Media
Just yesterday, Fred posted on how he wants media to be free:
We know that online content should be free and ad supported.
We need look no farther than the success of the online media giants, of which the New York Times is a member of, to understand how profitable free web-based media is.
And yet the Times is keeping its most interesting content, the stuff that always made it to the top 10 emailed stories list, behind a damned wall.
And interestingly enough, today the Times ran a (free) article called Why You Should Pay to Read This.
Frankly, I disagree with Fred. Traditionally, print media draws its advertising revenue based on the ad space, charging for the exposure to readers. On the internet, the most common method of advertising is pay-per-click, followed by pricing based on page-views. For better or worse, services like AdSense have mainstreamed the pay-per-click method, which presents its own problems. For search, PPC works extremely well, where people are looking to click on things in the first place. For content sites such as the New York Times, people are there largely to read the content, not to go clicking through the ads. As a result, ad revenue for the Times’ web site is far below the money it gets from print ads.
And personally, I think there’s value in media online. People put work into the content I consume, and sometimes it’s their job to do so, and they should be compensated. I don’t charge for my blog (I don’t think anyone does) because, frankly, a lot of isn’t really worth charging for. I write here for free and for fun. If, by contrast, Jeff Jarvis started charging for his, I’d consider paying for it.
The NYT hosts an awesome (what, like a hot dog?) amount of content, updated daily. I think it’s perfectly fair for them to ask a subscription price (especially something as reasonable as $50 annually) for access to the writing traditionally reserved for those who pay for newspaper delivery. Yes, the overheads are different, but so are the ad revenues. As print subscriptions continue to decline, newspapers are going to need to come up with ways to substitute the revenue gained from print advertising.
In the NYT article, David Carr writes about his 17-year old daughter:
Like many of her age and experience, Erin gets music free, her My- Space account is free, and she can surf for whatever else she needs. She and her twin sister use the timer on the VCR to record their favorite shows and then skip the commercials, just like TiVo (except they would have to pay for that). When I recently bought the paid online version of The U.S. News and World Report’s college resource, she and her sister Meagan acted as if I had fallen for a Ponzi scheme.
…and it’s true. Most people in my generation are unbelievably spoiled in what we get for free.
I try hard to pay for music when I can, because it’s my way of economically giving my input. I say “more of this,” every time I drop 99 cents on iTunes. I also help to keep the iTunes store in business, a virtual emporium for music and video that I really appreciate having.
Carr also touches on the way fees are currently set up:
Right now, consumers, especially younger ones, believe that they have already paid. A family of five, and we are not naming names here, spends $4,000 a year to access broadband, cellphone and cable coverage and would be fools to pay more.
I think this needs to change. It’s beginning to happen now---cities (like San Francisco) are beginning to look into ways to deploy WiFi access as public infrastructure. The “pipes,” as Carr calls them, should become more and more inexpensive (to the consumer) in themselves. It is the content provided through them that should generate revenue. Like television, you pay for the programming you recieve, not the cables you recieve it through.
By that rationale the NYT has every right to charge for Select content. And it shouldn’t stunt public discussion that much. If you’d like to post on an article, you can quote the parts you need to, and send a link back. If people really want to read it, they can pay.