I've paid a lot of attention over the last several years to the model of online news, hoping that a clear leader in monetization would emerge in the same way that the iTunes store brought change in how most obtained their digital music. The chapter slightly depressed me because it started out strong by comparing the two newspapers but then failed to really address how the rest of the chapter could apply to news. Other than implying "if you started free you're good. if you didn't start free, sucks to be you." The author did a lot to talk about the gap between free and charging ANYthing, which i found very interesting. I never thought of the Penny Gap that way before, and how even a financial commitment of $0.01 is enough to change someone's mindset.
Comparing the chapter to the paywall data, it appears as if most people are still willing to "pay themselves less than minimum wage" to find their content elsewhere. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have a M-F average circulation of more than 2 million yet only ~700,000 behind the paywall. I'd love to see a comparison of how many metered clicks the NY Times gets versus paid clicks. What's the falloff after the 10 free monthly views are reached? Do people pay or do they just open it in another browser or in an incognito browser to trick the metering code?
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In a funny turn, i just opened an email and this ad was at the bottom:
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