4 ms·

Micropayments for news will never happen. The thing with most news is that WE DON'T NEED TO KNOW IT. Think hard about this - has it made a difference that you k

Micropayments for news will never happen. The thing with most news is that WE DON'T NEED TO KNOW IT. Think hard about this - has it made a difference that you know about some lady who got kidnapped? What has changed that you can read about the details of the Iraqi election? You want to know this stuff only because you are aware of it - and you are aware of it only because you started reading the paper in the first place. If you never read a paper (because for example, you needed to pay to read it), then you'll not be interested in this news, and you won't see any need to pay for it. People will pay for information, but they will not pay for news. People want to be aware of what is going on in general, and if this is available for free, they will use those sites. The business of journalism is shrinking, and it will have to evolve fast. News will become more local, several cheap sources will be used to build a picture of a situation, and people will pay for more niche and more technical magazines (e.g Finance News). These papers have a strong brand now, but those brands are decaying. They should work on making sure their brands are strongly available everywhere, so that when the reorganisation happens, they can still remain a recognizable name.

run4yourlives 18y ago
Needing to know it and wanting to know it are two very different things. Ask Nancy Grace. The issue for newspapers is that they are hampered by their current medium, which is simply too slow to provide up to the minute "breaking news" stories that people want. Even worse, there are other mediums that can do exactly this! Newspapers need to focus on their quality, and remove the shackles of an outdated medium for once and for all.
jamesbritt 18y ago
"If you never read a paper (because for example, you needed to pay to read it), then you'll not be interested in this news, and you won't see any need to pay for it." Yet newspapers have been charging for quite some time, and people have been paying to read them, up until they found cheaper, faster, more complete sources. You're digging yourself into a hole of ignorance if you are only following what you've become accustomed to follow. Newspapers offer the accidental, and I bet many people enjoy them for that reason. You read things you didn't know would be interesting until you turned the page and there it was. It's not that there is a cost, it's that despite the cost newspapers are still increasingly inferior to, say, Google News.

run4yourlives 18y ago

Needing to know it and wanting to know it are two very different things. Ask Nancy Grace. The issue for newspapers is that they are hampered by their current medium, which is simply too slow to provide up to the minute "breaking news" stories that people want. Even worse, there are other mediums that can do exactly this! Newspapers need to focus on their quality, and remove the shackles of an outdated medium for once and for all.

jamesbritt 18y ago

"If you never read a paper (because for example, you needed to pay to read it), then you'll not be interested in this news, and you won't see any need to pay for it." Yet newspapers have been charging for quite some time, and people have been paying to read them, up until they found cheaper, faster, more complete sources. You're digging yourself into a hole of ignorance if you are only following what you've become accustomed to follow. Newspapers offer the accidental, and I bet many people enjoy them for that reason. You read things you didn't know would be interesting until you turned the page and there it was. It's not that there is a cost, it's that despite the cost newspapers are still increasingly inferior to, say, Google News.