Photo Courtesy of Madison_GuyJaron Lanier wants people to start digging into their pockets before they start downloading content off the internet. But will this actually do anything to help the creators? I don't think so.
In an interview, New York Times editor Bill Keller explains this idea is good in theory, but not in practice. The financial state of newspapers is on the decline because they have yet to figure out a way to monetize the content on their websites. So Keller decided to make people pay for their archives through a subscription called TimesSelect. It was cancelled after only two years.
Keller found that the website could make more money off of advertising by allowing everyone access to their content. The more people reading your website, the more you can charge for advertising. And Keller adds that even fewer people were accessing their website because paid content does not always show up during Web searches.
The newspaper now offers the Times Reader subscription service- an online paper similar to the daily paper. I don't really understand why someone would choose to do this...but I guess its better than buying your avatar a new pair of shoes in Second Life. Anyway, some people do it and The New York Times is reportedly "making a modest amount of money" off of it. In other words, it's not exactly the ultimate solution to end all their problems, but it's helping them hang in there for now.
Lanier urges us to abandon the "old idealism" and to "grow up". But the fact of the matter is, we are trying... but not really getting anywhere. Sure people are willing to pay for the content, but the price has to be fairly cheap (The Times Reader service charges $165/year for people who aren't home subscribers). So it might be more lucrative to charge a few advertisers a high price than to charge a lot of people a small price.
No comments:
Post a Comment