Today, The New York Times annouced that they will start charging for content on its site to users. Users can view few articles before they are asked to pay to continue viewing. This could be a terrible move on NYT part because there are many people who won’t pay for the content. People will just move on to other sources like the L.A Times, Washington Post and others that have about the same headlines for free. In the past there have been papers that have tried to charge users to read their content but it had no success. What makes you think this will? I believe the only way people will start paying for content is to have all major newspaper sites to start charging as well. If one doesn’t charge for its online content, then this will surely not succeed as people would rather get something for free then to pay for it. However, there are a few users who will gladly pay for the content:
Pete wrote: I’d gladly pay for the New York Times. The LA Times? Yeah… I think I’ll keep reading that online for free. I’ll pay to read the NY Times, you’ll never get a dime from me to read Plashke destroy the English language or Steve Lopez write another cornball fell-good story. And you wonder why your newspaper is dying? Just go for the Pulitzers, Baltimore. (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/comments_blog/2010/01/new-york-times-to-charge-frequent-users-of-its-site.html)
(LATimes.com)
