Murdoch's paywalls are 'antithetical to everything' claims Guardian's Rusbridger

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by khalleron

Bet if someone in that network began shilling for the politicians, they'd get called on it. Certainly better than the 'reliable' media Steve seems to be shilling for.

Well, it's being run as a test as a mathematician for his PhD. What is he testing precisely? The trust protocols. Oh, I know it's been done for years on things like Slashdot, but this is taking it to the next level and there's a great deal of potential.

HarryT - I am unconvinced that general news is worth pay, per-se. This doesn't mean that you can't monetise news, it just means you need to use other methods of doing so. I'd suggest news agents which nearly gather up the headlines for you every morning based on your filters as an example.

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Just as you and others are clearly enthusiastic for non-pay sites, including projecting the attitude that anyone who supports or appreciates pay services, in any way, must be clueless and not worth listening to.

No one has said anything like this. You're projecting, which is why I suggest you calm down.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

In other words, I'm not the only one who sounds condescending, nor are you the only ones in danger of being ticked off. Maybe you should try some tea. I take 2 sugars, myself. (Coffee's for wimps.)

I'm a tea-drinker myself (no sugar), but there's no need to be insulting to coffee drinkers just because they choose something different than we do.

Are you seeing a pattern here?

Do whatever you have to do, but calm the heck down. You're embarrassing yourself. Really.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Well, I think we've established that Rusbridger didn't know what he was talking about when he said paywalls were "antithetical" to the web. Although a pay site is not an absolute necessity, nor is it suited for every web application, there is no reason it cannot exist, and thrive, as the examples mentioned previously have demonstrated.

Though the internet has always been a "raw information" source, the World Wide Web was largely built upon commerce and profit, and profit in one form or another continues to rule the web. There are many ways to directly make money on the web, or to do something that is designed, not to make money today, but to increase status and demonstrate ability, with the intent of scoring a job or some other compensation tomorrow. I daresay there is very little on the web that is not designed to enact compensation of some sort from someone's efforts... not all of that compensation comes in the form of money, but there is still plenty of room for the compensation that does.

Pay sites, as a rule, never seem to be popular or desired, unless they have something of value that a consumer feels they cannot get elsewhere, or don't want to be bothered to dig up for themselves. Their emulation of the time-honored "subscription" process makes them an easily-understandable transition for people who previously used the same process for magazines and periodical content.

Given this, I'd suggest the concept of "pay per issue" will eventually make major inroads onto the web, especially as more and better hardware choices make it more attractive to buy digital periodicals on an individual basis, in spur-of-the-moment purchases or examination before purchasing subscriptions.

Sure, there will be people who will resist any web-based process that requires the spending of cash. But as there is plenty of room for these people to go their own way, it should in no way hinder the evolution of paid content, other than in providing the competition that said paid content will always have to rise above to justify themselves to their consumers.