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Harmon, you make some good points. What I think publishers are failing to consider now is what alternatives the reader has available to them. For example, I really don't think most people will pay for run-of-the mill newsy news. If I want to read about local stuff and major world events in general detail, there is a free commuter newspaper in my city IN PRINT that I can pick up at any subway stop. So why would I pay for that? On the other hand, more in depth features, I might pay for. For example, a magazine here has a very popular issue every year where they rank the universities and offer information about them. My local newspaper also has times where somebody will win a fellowship and publish an in-depth multi-part series on a topic like health care of education. If they had a system like Amazon where you could read a free sample and then keep going with one (paid for) click, that might interest me.
People WILL pay for convenience. I pay $11 a month to have dvd rentals mailed to me so I don't have to go out and get them. I am also thinking of upgrading the 2 gb free Dropbox account I got over the weekend to a paid one. I just logged into their website from school, downloaded a file I had put in there at home, and ten minutes later had a colouring book printed and ready to go for my students. Now that I have tasted this convenience, I am thinking of other things I can put into that Drop Box, and I want more capacity. A benefit has been demonstrated to me and I am perfectly happy to pay for the extra service I want.
It isn't that people are opposed to 'paying.' It's that people have not had it demonstrated to them how paying for news content will get them something different and better than the other options they have available to them.
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