Moving its content behind a pay-wall will be the death of the Times; one of the world’s most respected newspapers and a British national treasure. Even with a relatively modest subscription cost of £1 ($1.60) a day or £2 for the whole week, it has been showntime and time again that the hassle factor of making even a small payment to access a website will result in a hemorrhaging of readers. Unlike the Financial Times (no relation), only a small fraction of the Times’ online readership do so for business reasons – with most incorporating it into their general news diet. If it’s no longer free they’ll simply get their news elsewhere.
Great article from Paul Carr on Techcrunch about News International's paywall ambitions. In the past I've not been to keen on Paul's writing on TC, finding it verging on the irrelevant and silly sometimes. But I think this is terrifically well written and argued. A top bit of journalism about appropriately enough the future of journalism.
I enjoyed it so much, it's one of those rare online news occasions I would have happily paid for it.
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