Gannett going to paywall

Guess I'll save my clicks for a select group of columnists, starting with Doc in Cincy. I have no ties to Cincy, but I like Doc's stuff.
USAT could limit me to 15 clicks a year and I might reach that total by 2020.

 

When I can read ESPN.com, SI.com, CBSSports.com, FoxSports.com for free, why would I spend a single cent on a paywall for any newspaper?

This might not have been the case 5-7 years ago, but it sure as hell is now...

 

This will not end well.

 

Our local Gannett paper has had a firewall for a good two months now.

 

My hometown paper has had one for a good stretch of time. I use my father's password to access it.

 

Just buying a better violin to play as the Titanic sinks.

 

According to some on here, you're a thief for doing that.

 

To me that's the same as sharing a newspaper -- either in the house or leaving it on the el.

 

Delete cookies, you're a thief. Sharing passwords is just leaving the paper on a table. You have to love the word games that go with using digital content.

 

I think the idea is to ask readers to pay for local content that you can't get anywhere else. At least that would seem to be the theory. Of course, to do that you'd actually have to have sufficient staff to produce enough local content to make it worth the reader's time and money. Looking around my newsroom, that seems to be a dubious prospect at best.

 

Another case of someone (or in this case a company) thinking they are the NY Times. Instead, they are just going to kill their online views in a hope that it increases their subscriptions. What a small world way to think, in my opinion.