Of print and blogs and server-racks, Of online-fees and pings…

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There’s a big, beaming piece from Rutland Herald/Times Argus Publisher John Mitchell today, proudly launching the new paid subscription system for online content from the struggling independent newspapers he runs. He goes through the frustrations – rising costs, more people accessing content for free online than paying for it. All important, all a concern.

But here’s the thing – paywalls don’t work. They just don’t. The Argus/Herald is coming into this game very late, and this subscription thing has repeatedly been tried and been a total bust. Just because people would like to read something, doesn’t mean they’ll pay for it. The New York Times, the LA Times, even online sites like Salon – all famously tried and dropped their own paywalls after reporting an up to 97% drop in online traffic!

So I’m sympathetic – really – but this is still old style thinking. Slap a pricetag on it. Whatever the solution is, it aint that simple – just as media itself is no longer as simple as it was in newspapers good ol’ days. This is especially true with Anne Galloway’s vtdigger on the scene, operating under a completely different business model and providing both solid content and even more raw, undigested information that the Argus and Herald do, either online or in print.

No, the good ol’ days are gone – which is not to say that the new days can’t be good too – or even better – but subscription paywalls are demonstrably not the right tool for the right job, and I don’t know if struggling operations like Mitchell’s can afford to learn the hard way. They need to be worried about reinventing the wheel, rather than continuing to try the square wheel their comrades have repeatedly discarded.

So what do they do? I dunno. I have some ideas from a new media perspective. They may be as limited and problematic as ideas like the paywall that come from an exclusively legacy media perspective.

It’s a shame we can’t get together, compare notes, and pool experience and ideas to come up with new solutions. Unfortunately, as Herald/Argus editorial is so fond of reminding their readers, new media folks are little more than “blogmaniacs,” (for instance, see here and here – at least, see that second link while you can). And what possible good can come from breaking bread with a maniac?

In the meantime, I give this paywall business 6 months to a year.

(Note: Blogger Morgan Brown offers his more comprehensive thoughts on this in his own diary)

13 thoughts on “Of print and blogs and server-racks, Of online-fees and pings…”

  1. So, what does Mitchell mean by:

    A critical piece of that future and one reason for the paywall is to protect the content we have originated from news aggregators and other third parties who have been repurposing our content. From now on, when users register to use the website, they will agree to use the content for personal, not commercial, purposes.

    I mean, if I post a diary on GMD and quote TA I’m not using it for commercial purposes — but it’s also not “personal.” So, when he asks rhetorically “what does it mean for community journalism?” and answers by putting his content behind a firewall, I think he’s failing to understand precisely how “community journalism” is evolving courtesy of the GMDs and VT Diggers of this world. Regardless of his firewall, quoting is fair game, and if nobody is making any money off their quotes or references, we’re not the ones “stealing” his revenue, are we?

    I long since gave up my subscription to my own local rag, the Valley News, because I felt they were charging an exorbitant price to provide a couple of local pieces a day and then fill the rest of the paper with reprints of vapid AP feeds w/ a few edits. But I do appreciate that the likes of the TA/RH/VN can’t function without a revenue stream — I just think, as Odum mentions, that it’s already been proven beyond any doubt by the NYT and others that it’s a failed model, and putting your eggs in that basket will only exacerbate the need for finding a real fix sooner than later.  

  2. FWIW, I understand the the Times and Globe are going back to a paywall the first of the year.  So there’s probably something to it.

  3. I was a daily reader of the Rutland Herald online edition until today, but I can not afford to pay to read it now. Being unemployed, I just can’t afford the $4/wk, and don’t want the hard copy edition that come with that price anyway! $4/wk may not sound like much to some people, but it is for others.  Why not offer a lower price for online readers only (no print edition), or offer a reduced/free subscription to students/seniors/low income, or forget the whole paid subscription thing and just sell more online advertising (I would start by lowering the ad buy costs!) instead of trying to get the money from their readers? Unfortunately, one of the consequences here is that the poorest in our communities will now have even less access to news and information. Sad.

  4. And actor Christopher Lloyd is in the area doing Willy Loman in ‘Death of a Salesman.’  His timing is prescient.  

    Now if only he’d do Willy Loman as Reverend Jim from ‘Taxi’.  I would pay bucks to see that!

  5. People wouldn’t pay for Times Select, even though that meant they couldn’t read Krugman and the other Op-Ed writers. Does the TA really think people will pay $144 a year to read them online?

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