DISQUS

Nick · 2 years ago

A pay wall for the Post or the Times or any other paper simply blocks people out who then go elsewhere

This is, simply, an overstatement. You assume that all the news and comments that newspapers publish are fungible. That may, sadly, be the world the web will ultimately create, but it is not the world we have today.

What the research shows is that readers often value a particular newspaper, so if they can't get the stories online they will be more likely to purchase the print edition (or vice versa).

I find it odd that you, a newspaper writer, are so quick to assume that your own work is a fungible commodity. Perhaps you should give yourself - and your colleagues - more credit.

Nick

Mathew · 2 years ago

An overstatement it might be, Nick, but not much of one I don't think -- and certainly no more of an overstatement than Gentzkow's assertion that 27,000 people would suddenly start buying newspapers if a particular website were closed off to them.

As for the fungible part, I give my colleagues plenty of credit -- in the fungibility sweepstakes, they stack up with the best of them -- but wishing that news content wasn't fungible won't make it so.

Joe Duck · 2 years ago

... wishing that news content wasn’t fungible won’t make it so.

Indeed it will not, though I'm not clear I understand Nick's worries here. Simply from a *news* perspective wouldn't it be nice to have basic news come from many places and be a broadly practiced and fungible commodity item, while quality Op/Ed would move off of page x in the paper and onto the front page of good blogs like Nick's or this one? Yes we'd have cut out the capital intensive mega-publishers, but do they even invite you guys to their BBQs?

Mathew · 2 years ago

A fair point, Joe.

Karoli · 2 years ago

The underlying thesis to which Nick refers is flawed, because it assumes that online readers of the Washington Post are the same population as those who would otherwise subscribe.

Before newspapers were online, readers were limited to their local and/or regional newspapers. Bringing newspapers online means opening the audience to a global group of readers, whether those newspapers are national, regional or local. That global group won't necessarily pay to subscribe, but if offered the opportunity to read what the NY Times, or Washington Post has to say at the source, would certainly do so and in the process, add to the revenue stream by virtue of their visit. These are NEW readers, readers who would not otherwise subscribe or contribute to the revenues of the paper.

BTW, the only paid online news subscription I have ever had is to the NY Times crosswords because I am an addict...and they're still behind that paywall. However, I feel justified in that subscription because NY Times crosswords are the hardest crosswords ever. It's an educational expense. :)