Well, this doesn't happen every day: Someone agrees with me! CNET's Rafe Needleman writes, "The Internet is a dollar store."
Main point: "You want your price point to be so low that people don't think about it. $5 a month is $60 a year, real money for most people. $1? Far fewer people experience the payment of a dollar as an actual transaction ... wouldn't you rather collect a little money from a lot of people, than a fair price from just a few?"
On the other hand, Joshua Benton at Nieman Lab has some sharp words for the Times' reported $5-a-month plan: "Charge me more."
"The Times is the premier brand in American journalism," Benton writes, "and it appeals to an elite audience. Charging anything for access to a newspaper web site is going to drive away a lot of readers. But if you’re going to charge and go through the massive dislocation of turning something free into something with a price tag -- charging just $5 makes it seem like a damaged item in the discount bin."
Benton argues that the Times wouldn't generate enough revenue by charging "only" five bucks a month, that the plan ignores what we know about micropayments -- they don't work -- and that it sets a low ceiling for what other papers can charge.
This blog would argue that, for most papers, whatever the Times does, the ceiling is sitting on the floor.
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I used to post at Table Talk when it was free, but frankly, a couple of hundred dollars a year is REAL MONEY to me and I can find other places to post my snarky opinions for free.
The bottom line is that I get news and opinions from so many places on a daily/weekly basis: Slate, Salon, CNN, USA Today, NPR, pgatour.com, lpga.com, si.com, golfobserver.com - that I simply CAN'T AFFORD to pay them all for it.
But....as you point out, if a web site can get beyond that "diminishing our brand equity" mentality and charge a small amount from a HUGE audience - then maybe it would be a no-brainer.
As an additional suggestion I would advise the New York Times to accept PayPal, because for many people, including me - the thought of giving my credit card information to yet another organization online is enough to make me think twice. Also, if they pull that "once you give us your information we'll automatically renew your subscription every year" crap - I might balk also.
If they were smart, a flat fee like $50 a year entitles you to let's say 10 free articles a day. But let's say, there's a big news day, or you're researching something and you spend the day looking through their archives, then maybe you get charged an extra buck a click. Or on Sundays you might find youself spending an extra few bucks, if they've got a really rich features section. New Yorkers might want to take out some kind of premium subscription, since there are more stories that would appeal to them. Whereas international readers probably wouldn't go past the flat fee as often.
What do you think?
here's why. please note that the person she quotes. who would pay money for such such lazy circle jerks?
Will resume reading it (or paying for it), only if it were to state: From now on we will not be subservient to our advertisers, will derive ALL of our revenues from paying readership.
But that doesn't seem to be a viable business model for them.
They could recover the money from the advertisers .
Better still as most of the mainstream press no longer do proper investigative reporting they should get paid by the interests they shill for.
The advertising is an integral part of the product, and the NYT is better than most at maintaining the "wall" between the editorial and the business sides of the paper.
With the hits to credibility that they have had lately you can be sure that they think about that when ever they come in off of the window ledge.
Ads are OK by me, having worked in both newspaper publishing and advertising it is clear that these are intelligent professions and my belief is that journalism will continue to play an important role in our democracy in it's role of the fourth estate as described by James Burke.
Burke is generally viewed as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism.
He's also saying that $1. $2.50 or $5 a month -- won't increase the number of subscribers who would otherwise balk at $10. Once you're in, you're in, he argues. It may not be a marketing theory that appeals to us, but it may also be true.
I value foreign bureaus and investigative journalism, and I also fit the marketing profile. In for a penny, in for a pound. $10, $5, -- I probably wouldn't spend too much time contemplating the difference.
One side angle-- I'm concerned, as Benton is, for smaller town and more regional papers. If I pay for the Times, I might let my local paper go. But like most Americans, I may have been McDonalized into thinking that nothing should cost much. Meanwhile, my parents, who would never buy a cup of coffee to carry with them, could afford a few newspapers. Back in those days, the newspaper industry thrived.
Got that? Good, tell Pooch Sulzberger that if he pays me $200.00 a month, I'll look at the NYT for 5 minutes every day.
Since you asked, the rate for the Chicago Tribune & USA Today is $700.00 a month for 3 minutes of my time every day.
How is that different from other postings online. There seems to be an assumption made by many people here that "free" online postings are inherently more honest or at least less beholden to "interests" that MSM organizations.
Where is the proof for that?
ON THE OTHER HAND, Joshua Benton posts more ass-brained garbage than any significant voice in the debate. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that without that Harvard bump, he'd be just another laid-off cobwebs dot blogspot with a dusty Philip Meyer in his sidebar.
"Charge me more." Fuck you.
Anyhow, the only time I go to the Times now is to check on the Mets. Oh, I scan the cover but rarely find anything too compelling; much of it is news or opinion I've gotten days and sometimes weeks before from other sources.
In fact, I know it's heresy, but since I joined Open Salon, I don't even read "Big" Salon so much anymore, because there's not much that goes on in the world that I can't find out about in very timely fashion here and - to a lesser extent - Twitter. I do miss you, King, and Andrew Leonard and GlennG; really need to make more time to get back over there.
Anyhoo, my thought is that if tangible newspapers are going to die, which wouldn't be such a bad thing for the environment, but will make it tough for those without access to the Internets, and the news organizations have to charge readers something to supplement ad revenue in order to keep producing the news, people ought to be willing to pay whatever they paid for the paper itself: 50¢ a day and 2 bucks on Sunday, or something less if they're willing to pay for a month in advance.
That's all well and good when news is being delivered on printed material from one source to many readers. But now, when we all have access to a variety of sources, as niched as we want it to be, when we can be the source if we so choose, what is it exactly that the NYT is going to deliver to me that is worth the $60?
I'm ok with getting cut out of the NYT loop if I don't pay up, I will not be uninformed.
I can tell you I'm on the verge of cutting my NYT home delivery, at $58/month for seven days, to Friday through Sunday and going with the online version. If the Times charged $5/month, it would still be a bargain. But who knows? Elasticity of demand may be better at $1/month. As for Benton's assertion that micropayments don't work, Steve Jobs would be happy to tell him about the billions the iTunes store has reaped in recent years. For sure, I wouldn't pay a dime for his analysis.