New York Times Ready to Charge Online Readers

Just this morning in our weekly staff meeting the internet guy handed out a sheet showing how many hits/visitors/blah blah were on our site in December.

I said "What this shows is how many people read the paper for free instead of paying for it."

 

Part of the problem in terms of consumer perception, I think, is that a lot of people already feel like they're "paying" for news online. I pay $45 a month for Internet service and one of the things I use it for most frequently is accessing online news. I understand that newspapers (and the TV networks that produce the Hulu programs I watch) don't see a penny of that. It is a knee-jerk perception, though.

Charging for online access is the kind of thing I think everybody's going to have to start doing before it'll really have an impact. Good for the Times, though. I'm sure they'll at least make some money off of it. It's part of the reason WSJ is turning a profit, if I recall correctly, so I'm not seeing a downside.

 

This is an industry in which charing for the product you produce is seen as a novel step.

Just sayin'.

 

A person after my own heart. I've suggested on this website many times that the content/news providers should go after the internet providers for a fee, the way networks go after the cable providers. But I've been told time and time again what an "idiotic" idea that is. I call it the cable TV revenue model. You can't blame me for thinking that way, though. I'm just a TV person who doesn't know any better.

 

Well, in order for that to work, all you'd have to do is rebuild the entire infrastructure of the internet from scratch, so that it works in an entirely different way from the way it does not.

Not so much idiotic. Let's call it "ambitious."

 

There have already been a few experiments with providing entire cities with blanket wireless access. To the best of my recollection, some of them have been successful, some haven't.

But I have to think that sometime in the next 10 years or so, Internet will become a standard service that everyone gets, without directly paying for it. Whether that's through a government-funded program, or some ad-supported method, or some combination I don't know. But the days of paying for Internet access are numbered -- even if it's not quite clear what the number is.

 

ESPN uses that model for ESPN360. And not all ISP's are on board. A newspaper won't have the clout to get ISP's to pay for access.

 

Well, I'm one of those who doesn't think it would work, but I'm a TV person too so we cancel each other out. Sort of like midget wrestling.

I agree with Stitch that newspapers will not have the clout with ISPs to pull it off.

The one way I see the pay model working is (a) if everyone does it, and (b) if I get access to my local paper free with my standard subscription. Short of that, I'm not optimistic. Gotta try something, though.

 

Cable TV stations are like magazines mailed directly to homes.

Newspaper web sites are like small scraps of paper posted on very large public bulletin boards.

 

That's great ... if newspapers are the only things to charge the ISP. But let's say the TV networks follow suit with their site. And Google. And Yahoo. And Amazon. And Youtube. And Facebook. And Twitter. And eBay. And every site that gets more than 1,000 uniques a day.

One of two things will happen: your $50/month internet fee gets a HELL of a lot higher, or your $50/month gets you a HELL of a lot less internet than it used to.

Unless you can conceive of a way in which only newspapers charge the ISP while everyone else doesn't bother.

Now if it gets to the point where most (if not all) internet access is free, then that changes. Right now, there's still parts of the country that can't get high-speed internet and won't until there's a way to get it to those hoots and hollers tucked in mountain ranges and whatnot. And that's just the U.S.

Which is the other problem -- how many ISPs are there in the world that have customers that use, say, ESPN.com?

And even if you can limit access to ISPs that pay your rates, there's always a proxy or another way to mask your IP that lets you in anyway.

Idiotic? No. Short-sighted and unfeasable? Yeah, actually.

 

I haven't heard the term hoots and hollers since my great uncle, who lived two doors down, used to say it when I was kid - 20-plus years ago.

Brought back some memories. I loved him and his family - his wife (my great aunt) and kids (my cousins). Made me smile.

Thanks for that.

 

Just curious: What was the internet guy's -- and everyone else's -- reaction to what you said?