Quote:
Originally Posted by DawnFalcon
Examples? Link!
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Harry has already mentioned the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Oxford English Dictionary sites. Sonist mentioned Zinio. (Find your own links
.) I suggested erotica sites as well, such as Playboy and Penthouse--I will refrain from listing others, but we all know that erotica/porn is perhaps the best example of paid content sites on the web, bar none.
The web is rife with pay content. People will pay for content they want, if they consider it worth having. And if you read the first post, you'll note that I wasn't only referring to general news content, but magazine and periodical "specialty" content as well. Based on the evidence, there seems every reason to expect that people can get used to paying for content they want... even when they don't really want to pay for it (because, after all, who really
wants to pay for anything?... but somehow, people make money off of us).
Perhaps general news sites will have the hardest time establishing paywalls compared to other types of sites... but I don't see it as impossible, if their customers believe they are getting a quality site that speaks to them and filters out the noise they don't want to hear. In essence, this is the promise of all specialty sites, and the reason people are willing to pay to get them.
It's based on this that I say Rusbridger's comment is simply inaccurate, that it does not, in fact, apply to "everything" on the web. It's idealistic wishful thinking on his (and many others') part, but that doesn't make it true.