Nope, wouldn't pay. Unless all the free sources went away, then I might $20 a year for a news subscription service that I could customize to include the types of news I want to see (world, human interest, tech, etc). Otherwise, I'm too busy and news isn't all that important to me...rarely affects my personal life.

NO!

I find think charging for news content online is a horrible idea that will fail quickly.

Web designers know that simply adding an extra click to the process of reaching content will dissuade most users. Sites that have added registration saw their readership drop tremendously (and most news sites that once required registration have ended the process quickly).

Even if they charge 10 cents per month I predict most users will refuse to pull out their credit card and will instead find their news elsewhere.

News sites need to stop whining that ads are not profitable enough to survive. CNN.com has always been free and is extremely profitable.

I find think charging for news content online is a horrible idea that will fail quickly.

Web designers know that simply adding an extra click to the process of reaching content will dissuade most users. Sites that have added registration saw their readership drop tremendously (and most news sites that once required registration have ended the process quickly).

Even if they charge 10 cents per month I predict most users will refuse to pull out their credit card and will instead find their news elsewhere.

News sites need to stop whining that ads are not profitable enough to survive. CNN.com has always been free and is extremely profitable.

Generally, no. Putting aside the cost, it becomes far to difficult to manage, and keep track of all of the different subscriptions. Hell, it's hard enough remembering passwords for all of the different websites that require registration, but which you only visit once in a while.

No

Nope. If I want to read a newspaper, I get it from my neighbors. If I want to read it online, I can't just log into their account anytime I want.

Plus, most news is available on television or by word of mouth...or at a public library already.

I'm on the internet for the free stuff I get!
Not to pay!
I'm amazed at the massive amounts of free stuff we already get!
But I'm not going to pay anything, unless I buy an actual thing off the internet like a purchase on Amazon or Ebay.

No

the only thing i would ever pay for that was a service over the internet would be MMORPG games other then that i have never seen anything i would find worth paying for service wise like papers or anything else

no one is willing to pay for an online newspaper subscription like that from the new york times because those type of information has become free due to the internet.

what the internet has done is make information inflated. in the beginning of the internet life cycle [sometime during the early or mid 90's], it was okay to charge subscription because information on the internet was limited due to the availability of the net to everyone. jump several years from that time to the current present, majority of the people have a form of connection where they can go on to the internet. because of this [being able to get on the internet], people are inputting more information into the "internet system". as more information is being put into it, the less value it gets.

game sites like ign or newspaper sites like new york times are wasting their time if they intend to charge people.

Paying somebody to lie to you(or regurgitate lies from the AP) just seems unconscionable, they should feel fortunate that anybody reads it at all. Some may charge, but there will always be some that carry news for free, so my answer is:

Yes, I'm all for them charging, since it will be a nail in their coffin, and

No, I wouldn't pay for it.

The only way I would hop on board was if I had total control of what I viewed. For example I would want to view news about 'tech' and 'economics' and omit the 'religion' and 'sports' related news.

The website would have to have alot of features that let me control the type of news im most interested in.

CNN is profitable because half the stories these days are videos of celebrities and animals--they have given up journalistic integrity in return for popularity.

I would pay for Tom's :-) I agree with others that the barrier is more about effort than financial burden. If i didn't have to share my credit card I would be happy to pay 1c per article or something similar.

If big media goes the nonprofit route we could institute a system of donation buttons at the ends of articles--that way people could vote with a small $tip for the stories they deem most important. It worked for Radiohead... This would reflect what people care about, as opposed to what fearmongering title drew the most people to click... "SWINE FLU STRIKES AGAIN"...

in a word: NO

Just like any other industry, the online news industry started very quickly and explosively. The market is now oversaturated, with low barriers to entry and near-zero profitability.

Naturally, the market will shrink and hopefully many news sites will burn out. This will force the good, reliable news sources to differentiate their product and improve quality. However, the barriers to entry will remain low, competition will remain high and profitability will not be there.

So to answer the QOTD: No, paying for content is not in our forseeable future.

No, absolutely I would not. Newspapers and magazines make most of their money from advertising and not from subscriptions and newsstand sales. Those sales pay for the materials used to produce print media (ink, paper, machinery, repairs, delivery, and associated staff). Every time there is a new medium the same organizations bitch and moan. This happened with radio and television after that.

Also, the internet is a hell of a lot closer to print than radio or television in the respect that you largely read text and can pick and choose what you take in and when. Whereas with radio and television you get whatever is being served up on the channel. Due to this similarity, the 'problem' shouldn't be that difficult to solve.

IMO, print media companies need to band together to get cheap, easy-to-use, and durable e-readers on the market in order to convert the last of the print die-hards (e.g. the elderly and tech-challenged) to the electronic format so they don't simply lose those readers. They can continue to charge for the e-reader subscriptions because that demographic doesn't know how to get it for free anyway. At the same time they need to also collectively demand more dollars for their online advertising space to rival that of their print space. Afterall, print media does not allow the reader to simply click on an ad and be instantaneously transported to the checkout line, electronic media does. With the money saved by the tremendous overhead of large offices and the steady decline of printed materials (and all associated costs) they should be making relatively the same amount of money as before or perhaps even more.

What they're really afraid of is that whenever there is a paradigm shift it opens the door for new organizations to enter the fray and compete. This is what scares the hell out of them. NYT is used to competing with WashPo and WSJ, not HuffPo and Drudge Report. The devil you know is always better than the one you don't.

As far as the second part of the question, they would have to give me something tangible, something I could hold in my hand to justify charging for a subscription. Off the top of my head: give free or highly discounted e-readers with multi-year subscriptions and 'deliver' the content to that device (with maybe a web login as well). Cell phone carriers apply the same model and they're not hurting by giving away or seriously discounting phones with multi-year contracts.

While I wouldn't pay for online news myself, I could see this working for some of the major daily newspapers out there. This would only work however, if there was an extremely high caliber of writing talent with the given publication, and subscription fees should be reasonable. I'm sure Kindle users would appreciate this. It could also open up a much larger audience (worldwide) which would off-set the loss of any readers who are unwilling to pay. There of course could also be advertisement sponsored versions at a lower/free cost, where paying customers would not have to see the advertising at all.

NO, enough revenue should be made from advertisement anyway.

already exists, check out My Yahoo!

I would pay a subscription for *RELEVANT* news that was *AD FREE* and *TYPO FREE*. The folks here who don't buy anything have an irrelevant opinion. Only the paying consumers matter to the people choosing to engage in a business model. My guess is the model that will end up working best is a combination of ad-sponsored, and subscription. If you pay, the ads go away. Perhaps subscribers could also somehow voice their opinions of what subjects are valuable to them. Just my two cents.

I personally hate reading on the internet. Holding a newspaper in your hands is way better than reading on a monitor. The only reason I'm here on TH is because I trust them more than those crappy mags. And I also like the blogs and community.

Does everyone honestly think that it is their right to have free news? The only reason the situation exists now is that the revenue is made elsewhere (printed news and ads?) Keep in mind that revenue generated from ads relates to the popularity of a website.

If it came down to it, would I pay for news online? Sure, but I'd expect to get an edit button and gramatically correct articles. If they wanted to keep it free and go with ads, I wouldnt mind two sidebars. I don't expect to get something for nothing.

I would consider paying for content that is a) a magnitude jump in quality over what is available free elsewhere (quality of writing, journalism, investigation, analysis, and presentation among other factors) and b) relevant. Exclusivity of content helps, but on the internet, exclusivity is almost a self-contradicting term. Perhaps a better way of putting it would be: deliver an exclusive total experience of the news. The facts that build a news story are all "out there" in the ether, waiting for anyone to assemble them into a story and publish. The unique experience must come from what you, the journalist, brings to the story. Deliver to me a quality, relevant news experience I can't get elsewhere, and I'll gladly pay for it.

I don't read the newspaper. I get my news from my ISP's homepage, Tom's, etc. So no, I certainly wouldn't pay for it. I do know certain people, however, who might drop their current paper subscription, and would go for a cheaper rate that gave them access to the same content online. They would pay less, and the newspaper company would save on printing and delivery costs.

I agree. I wouldn't object to paying for content that was more valuable than all the free schlock out there, and didn't pester me with ads. I will not, however, pay for "more-of-the-same" crisis-mongering content of limited relevance, written to appeal to the lowest common denominator, by people who can't bother to use proper grammar and punctuation.

I am also a lot more likely to visit "sponsors" than "advertisers." I'm intelligent enough to realize when I need something; don't try to manufacturer a need, but if I know you support something I use and enjoy, I may very well seek you out if there is something you have that I want.

No way. They tried to have paid content on the internet in the mid-90s as I recall and that fizzled out for a lot of sites. The standard has been set people want free content and will expect nothing less.

Advertisement, gambling, and porn are the only ways to generate revenue on an ongoing basis. Which costs the average consumer nothing.

Exactly ... that is why most people aren't willing to pay: they think the content delivered isn't worth paying. Most website now just deliver news, which is information without much "mental processing"; that isn't worth a penny IMO. What I want is subjects investigated, analyzed, put into context and criticized (both for and against).

Heck, I'm still using WP 5.1 Plus for DOS (which I did purchase many years ago) on a quad-core, i7-920, 12GB system with Win.7.64.RTM. A WYSIWYG GUI just isn't important for my word-processing needs. I buy new software when I NEED it -- not when it gets updated. Same goes for online content. I will pay if and only if it affects AND IMPROVES my quality of life from MY perspective. Translated: They are not likely to get a dime -- nor even a micro-payment -- out of me unless it is something that I actually need or it is something that affects my ability to prosper.

It would depend on the content. I understand that it costs money to have good journalists doing in depth, unbiased reporting - and that I would pay for. Those who write opinion pieces (sometimes disguised as journalism)or who write to promote an agenda can post on a free blog. I don't mind paying for true, investigative journalism.

But part of what pays for those journalists is advertising. Subscriptions do not pay for a printed newspaper; advertising does. I expect that media corps. will want to transition to the web with the comfortable business model, rather than try to come up with a new model that they are not sure of. I wouldn't object to advertising, even in a paid subscription - but it had better be passive and unobtrusive. I can ignore ads in a printed paper, so I expect the same on an online newspaper. Ads that flash and expand if your mouse comes near them, etc. would not be acceptable.

I would also like to see the language level raised in this type of journalism. I once heard that the magazine/newspaper language level is set to a sixth grade vocabulary. How are people expected to increase their vocabularies with that? Include an online dictionary, or link those $25 words to a pop-up, like the double underlined ads here on Tom's, and help people improve.

Side note - I do have a paid subscription to a small newspaper and it includes the online version. As the printed version is mailed to me, I like getting to read some of the online as soon as it is published.

Yes.

Free has had a nice long run, but ads can't subsidize things forever.

However, it'll likely end up badly: only the sites that draw the most paying customers will survive, then those remaining sites will decide they can charge more and ad-driven sites will return in protest...