My former WSJ colleague Jason Fry, whose Reinventing the Newsroom is a must-read in my world, today discusses Alan Mutter's survey of news publishers and readers, and highlights the headline we've all seen:
While 68% of the publishers responding to the survey said they thought readers who objected to paying for content would have a difficult time replacing the information they get from newspaper websites, 52% of polled readers said it would be either “very easy” or “somewhat easy” to do so.
As Jason says, "publishers have a wildly inflated view of their content’s value compared with that of the very people they’d ask to pay for it."
That's part of the disconnect. The other is the finding that 71% of publishers said their objective is "preserving print circulation." That's based on their belief that closing their web site by erecting a pay wall will cause people to go back to the newspaper. The readers don't think so, though, and neither do I. Especially not in the long run.
As I said to Jason, in creating a product you hope to sell, the real question for publishers (or anyone else) is, what are you doing that people will pay for? If you have something unique that people find valuable, then you have a potential business. (And lots of work to do on pricing, branding and marketing.) But if you only have commodity stuff (things everyone else has too) or if no one wants what you have very much, then you don't have a business and you can forget about complex philosophical questions.
Analogies are not only fun, but useful, in this situation. A lot of analysts are basically saying that fruit-vendors don't have a business because one guy went broke trying to sell apples for $2 next to a wide-open apple orchard. Lower the price, sell apple juice (or applejack), sell baskets or bags for apple-picking, whatever, but find a damn business.
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