craigslist musings

For a long time music cost money.

Then, for a while - thanks to file-sharing - it was free.

Now it costs money again.

How many downloads did iTunes sell last year?

 

Well, to be fair, you can still download free music if you want...

 

And yet 29 million people last year didn't. They acquired digital music online through iTunes. They paid hundreds of millions of dollars to do so, at 99 cents a song.

And yet we're sure they won't pay 9 cents a day for an online newspaper?

It seems to me newspapers have given up on the idea of charging for content before ever really trying it.

 

Are we gonna start taking people to court for illegally downloading news content?

That's the only reason iTunes works. The RIAA went after people, hard. Instead of paying a $1,000-per-song fine for everything found to be illegally downloaded on their computers, customers decided to suck it up and pay for downloads.

Yet as others have mentioned, free file-sharing sites still survive, maybe even thrive.

 

Wow, I was thinking the exact same thing earlier. I think the newspaper industry is clueless about the Web and in identifying what about the Web it can best take advantage of, it's coming up with some wrong answers.

I think the best thing a newspaper can do is be nimble and detailed with giving readers a constant stream of new information. If you are updating your site a couple of times an hour, you give people reason to look again and again.

 

The question isn't whether video is potentially useful or not. The question is what will be the foundation of the web effort. Your current strengths or your future technology.
I think it's more prudent moving forward by maximizing your available resources and one would assume your resources are reporters who can cover things more quickly and thoroughly than any other news-gathering organization in your market. So you get that thorough information, put it up on the web as quickly as you can and let the reader get conditioned to feel like they can go to your site throughout the day for information.

As time goes on, you incorporate new technologies, particularly as your site grows. But it makes no sense to emphasize new technologies and not what you're already good at. It's like a team with Lou Brock, Maury Wills and Willie Wilson deciding to be a home-run hitting team and not steal, because the "new thing" is hitting home runs...

 

When somebody buys a song from iTunes, they know it's a song they'll like b/c they've already heard it. iTunes just gives them the advantage of only paying for something they want (that one song), not all the other stuff that drives up cost (the other 10 crappy songs on the CD). That just doesn't work for newspapers. Why would someone pay for the whole paper/online subscription when there may only be one or two stories in there each day that they would be interested in? It won't even work to charge for individual stories, because how would someone really know if they are really interested in that story before they buy it? Just from a summary/teaser? They want to sample before they buy, and when you're delivering something that has no replay value, it doesn't work.

Some of the comments on this thread make it sound like charging for content online is the way to go. Newspapers have been charging for their print content for ages, and that still only makes up 20% of their revenue. Unlike other commodities, newspaper business models have never charged their customers the amount it would take to cover the actual cost of production. How much would charging for content online really add to the pot? Not enough to make it worth driving people away with a paywall.

Going by that logic, Apple should've waited until it has become the leader in the personal computing market before branching off into its other ventures. I mean, they're a computer company. Why veer away from your strength and go make things like iPod or iPhone?

The difference is Apple probably didn't send their iMac engineers to a 3-day "retraining" session and told them to go invent a new MP3 player or a new phone. You get what you pay for, or don't pay for.

 

I used the Apple parallel only to make the point that people who've been conditioned to get something for free online can be reconditioned to pay for it.

And certainly subscription can't be expected to carry the revenue load alone.

But how - at this point in our decline - can we simply reject ideas out of hand?

 

There is only one record label authorized to distribute the latest releases from a musical artist. They get to decide who the resellers will be or whether to put the material out there for free for some reason. The label owns the distribution and the artist (usually) owns the publishing rights. Anyone who wishes to bypass them does so at their own risk.

You either acquire the music on their terms and at their price, download it illegally from somewhere at great financial risk or listen to FM radio 24/7 so you can hear the same one track four times a day.

With news content, there are often multiple sources for the stories. The newspaper (hopefully) has the most thorough coverage of last night's city council vote banning topless dancing between the hours of 3:45 and 4:15 a.m. on alternate Sundays (unless there's a full moon), but the three network-affiliate TV stations were also there to report the story as was the alternative weekly and the local cable system with the 24-hour-a-day news channel. And don't forget the three community activists with their own blogs and the all-news AM radio station that usually relies on rip-and-read but will send a reporter to the occasional news event.

They're all going to post audio, video and/or rewrites on their sites and at least a couple of them will not charge for the service. Now, their overall quality may suck, but they're still providing the info for free. And the online users will gravitate toward them because it's free.

 

Please see my post just before yours. My Apple example was very specific in its intention.

But to your general point: Yes, if we keep telling people our product is worth nothing, they'll believe it.

 

You are using an, ahem, apples and oranges comparison ...

The difference is, Apple continued to emphasize the quality of its computer product as a foundation for what it did branching out. It firmly established A before moving to B. Right now, newspapers sites are sometimes considering disregarding A and moving to B.