Five and ten years ago we were wondering whether people would ever pay for digital media. But now the question isn’t whether people, young and old, will pay — it’s how the hell to figure out how much to charge them…

via Nieman Journalism Lab.

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3 Comments

  1. Digital media now reaches the world and floats in the internet ether for ever, not just the agreed 18, 24, 36 months or what ever; so you charge fees for international , 2-5 years usage as a starting point.
    Or you become a little girly-man whore and take what ever you can get.

  2. The real question is why international publishers are not taking action against all those sites that allow editorials etc that are obviously stolen to ‘stay in business’. With blogging becoming more and more commercial every day; and a lot of those bloggers relying on ‘other peoples’ content to maintain their(?) blog; why are publishers giving them a free pass!

    Nothing will change until some examples are made of these who rely image theft as ‘content creation’. I suspect there is room for a new publishers collective to get this job done as whomever’s job it is at the moment does not seem to be doing anything at all…

    Oh; and I don’t think anything will really change until something is done; Bloggers are killing the thing they love; and that ‘thing’ is quality print publications..

  3. No matter how many times you say “people will pay for content” doesn’t make it true.

    It is true that we no longer need to wonder whether people will pay for content. We know the answer and the answer is definitely no. And anybody who says otherwise simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

    The exceptions are just that — exceptions (before you go out dragging out the NYT and WSJ on my ass … please make sure you understand the facts and context of those examples).

    Also, and by paying for content, I mean, in context of the news business and generating sufficient revenue from paid content to replace the revenue lost to online.

    No non-premier, general circulation newspaper or magazine has ever successfully charged for content online.

    In fact, if you truly understand publishing, no newspaper subscriber has ever paid for content.

    Also, to Kent’s comment, the idea that bloggers steal content is an old, disproven and misinformed argument.


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