Jan 29 2009
More paywall retardedness
Over on the Knight Digital Media Center, journalist Gerry Storch joins the chorus of nitwits clamouring for the revival of the paywall.
He asks why the newspaper industry is the only one in America expected to give away its product for free.
You don’t get free gas from a gas station.
You don’t get free meals from a restaurant.
You wouldn’t walk into the Googleplex … that’s Google’s corporate headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. … and expect a staffer to rush to the lobby with 1,000 free shares of Google stock for you.
At least we don’t think so.
Of course, gas and food have large production, transport and delivery costs, something that newspapers have but electronic news delivery does not. And Google stock is not Google’s product, as one commenter pointed out.
And other commenters pointed out that radio and TV give away their content for free too, demolishing yet another pillar in Storch’s not-so-sturdy argument.
Worse, Storch apparently forgets that a newspaper’s product is not paper, nor even news. It is and has always been readership. And you give readership away for free when you stick your content behind a paywall – a precisely opposite outcome to Storch’s thesis.
As yet another commenter pointed out, the news has always been given away free. Even a subscription to a print newspaper only helps offset the cost of that outdated and environmentally unsound delivery method.
As someone once said – I wish I could remember who* – never in history has a company amassed a huge audience and then failed to make money from it. That is the business any content provider should be in, despite these incessant squawks to the contrary. And a large audience for news will fail to be amassed if it is hidden in private little walled content gardens.
The web is built on documents and links between documents. Just ask Berners-Lee, who invented it, and should know. Paywalls discourage links, and so are anathema to the web – probably not a good way to conduct business on the web, right?
So while I agree whole-heartedly that newspapers should get out of print and focus on developing audience on the web, I think these constant attempts to revive paywalls run counter to the cause.
* A newspaper editor has informed me that it was Rupert Murdoch. But neither the editor nor myself can find a link to the statement. Can anyone help me find a link?
3 Responses to “More paywall retardedness”
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I think there's a legitimate debate to be had about the use of paywalls. Until we find a viable business model, nothing should be rejected outright.
And journalism *does* have a high production cost. Some media owners think that cost should be minimized, but professional journalism still costs money.
Steve, you seem to miss the actual arguments above. The debate is not legitimate. Paywalls are no-go.
I wish I had seen the above article before today (May 18). I’ve gone all these months without knowing I was officially a nitwit. Not just someone you can debate and discuss with … no, not that … but a nitwit amidst a “chorus of nitwits.” Sometimes I am a nitwit … but I don’t think so on this one. In the time since then, what has happened is that all sorts of people have disobeyed the brilliant Tim Burden and actually dared to continue developing paywalls.He had forbidden this as an ongoing topic … he called it a “no-go” … but those nitwits, they can be so goshdarn disrespectful.The nitwits have been formulating online subscription plans, micropayments, premium content plans, the meter plan … nitwits would “park” on a site and feed the meter.Now there’s talk by the nitwits of adapting the British model in which papers make a lot of money by having Bingo, sports betting and other gaming on their sites.And can you imagine this, a nitwit like Steve Brill risked the brilliant Tim Burden’s stern censure to begin a venture called Journalism Online whose specific purpose is to allow nitwit publishers to make money off articles they submit to the site.Gordon Crovitz, who rose to become publisher of the Wall Street Journal though the brilliant Tim Burden could have done that job much better if only he had been given the chance instead of having to stay home alone in his basement, joined to help run the venture.Those nitwits, you just can’t keep ‘em down. They don’t realize how inferior they are. They don’t understand the argument by the brilliant Tim Burden that when you buy a newspaper you are buying a delivery system because when they go to a newsstand for a paper they still have to pay for it even though they have delivered themselves to it, not it to them.They don’t appreciate, this sorry lot, just how brilliant Tim Burden would be leading a newspaper.Brilliant editor Burden: “Sorry, staffers, you’ll have to go without money again this week because despite my brilliant leadership we didn’t make any money because we don’t have a pay web site.”Nitwit staffers: “But Mr. Burden … er, sir … er, your highness … we’re hungry!”Brilliant editor Burden: “All right, I will give you links. As I once told that nitwit Gerry Storch, ‘The web is built upon documents and links between documents.’ “Nitwit staffers: “Oh thank you, sir, at least we can have breakfast!”And so here we are … another chance for us nitwits to be educated, to have our consciousness raised, to be put in our place.
P.S. Only a nitwit would have a comment box where you can’t space out your paragraphs.