It amazes me that there is still talk about paywalls at old media type establishments like the NY Times. Paywalls are a tried and failed method of trying to ge

It amazes me that there is still talk about paywalls at old media type establishments like the NY Times. Paywalls are a tried and failed method of trying to get people to pay for content (with notable exceptions) for a couple of reasons (my opinions here ... proceed with caution) ... a. people don't like to be held to ransom ... "Pay now, or you can't read this article that your friend just linked you to" is hostile and abrupt ... its like having a girl (you) show up with a friend to some guy's house and instead of being a good host and working up to asking you out ... he opens with "So how about it ... want to screw?" It might work (law of averages) ... but it usually doesn't. b. The content that they provide is overvalued in their minds, I forget the psychological term for this ... but because they spend all this time and money to report the news, they assume that people care ... and people don't ... because most news is a commodity. If I can read the same story with pretty much the same quality of writing on Yahoo news (and I do ... all the time) why would I pay you for that content on a nicer looking website. Truth is that these news organizations need to start thinking like startups and answer the question How do we provide more value to the people who read the news? The Wall Street Journal and sites like Stratfor have figured out how to make paywalls work by gasp providing content that you can't find anywhere else and are willing to pay to get your hands on. Why hasn't the NY Times learned from this? The NY Times strikes me as the girl that used to be smoking hot, but hit her thirties and is finding that she's not as attractive as she used to be (even though she is still pretty good looking) ... and instead of constantly being chased by men, she now has to actually initiate interaction once in a while. I think they're having a hard time adjusting to that, even though they could be killing the game if they got over that mental hump. oh well PS: Sorry for the rant, I'm a huge news junkie