Paid vs. Free vs. Someone Else Pays

Posted on November 13, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized |

Whenever debates flair up about the merits of free content versus premium subscription content, well someone has to throw up the Wall St. Journal’s online efforts. I heard this over and over when I first argued that TimesSelect was a stupid idea, and whenever TimesSelect was debated, the WSJ came up.

Partly because the web is so thoroughly lacking in paid subscription sites (of the non-niche publication variety, like science publications) but also because the WSJ has a legitimate success in their online portal. With 10 million users generating $50 million in annual revenue for the WSJ it’s hard to argue it’s not a success.

But it’s hard to argue that paid subscription models work when the WSJ is the only mainstream publication successful at it, and more to the point, even they are seeing a greater economic opportunity by making it all free.

“News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said Tuesday he intends to make access to The Wall Street Journal’s Web site free, dropping subscription fees in exchange for anticipated ad revenue.”

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