Newspaper giant Rupert Murdoch has been talking publicly this week about his beliefs that other publications will need to follow his lead in charging for web content if they want to stay afloat. This is obviously not what readers want to hear.
There’s something very psychological and also rather arbitrary about which content American consumers are and are not willing to pay for. Historically it’s been understood that because time, money and effort must go into developing and distributing content, it’s necessary to reimburse the creator.
And for many products, consumers still think this way. We expect to pay to read a hard copy of the newspaper, book or magazine. We expect to pay a ticket price for concerts and films, or the cable bill if we want to access more diverse and high quality television programming.
But with the advent of the internet, this logical model has been shattered. Many corporations and publications began offering free content over the internet long before they had a real grasp of the implications of such a decision.
Charging for internet access to newspaper content is not unreasonable. The papers need to be reimbursed for their efforts, and the advertising revenue simply isn’t doing the job.
But after upwards of ten years of paying nothing, consumers have an often subconscious expectation that it will remain this way. The job of the newspapers that are simply trying to stay afloat is not an enviable one. It will hard, if not impossible, to undo this mode of thinking.
Think about Napster for a moment. When it first came about, users flocked to the program as a way for acquiring music content for free. After it got slammed with multiple lawsuits, the site had no choice but to start charging for these songs.
And then it fell off the map. The monumental success of ITunes demonstrates that consumers are willing, in theory, to pay for music content. But they are not going to do so from any place whose name has for so long been synonymous with “free”.
Could the newspapers ever pull it off? Some argue that users will find another place to go for free content. But unlike Napster and ITunes, there’s no guarantee of comparable content when you jump from the New York Times to some no-name small town post.
I have some degree of hope. After all, Sirius and XM (now merged) pulled it off. They got radio users to pay for content they essentially already had access to for free simply by making it better.
If the newspapers think outside the box and find an original way to reprove to their readers that their stories are worth paying for, I think things will work out just fine.
What are your feelings about newspapers charging for online content? Do consumers have any entitlement to continue to receive it for free? Tell us your thoughts.
