[robg]

I had the same initial response where robg == billybob. Then I started thinking "why must good content be free?". The best alternatives (Economist, WSJ) all charge and I'm not about to start reading cnn.com. Perhaps the BBC site.

I could cobble together a morning read from other sources. I guess it just depends on their pricing model. I'm willing to listen, at least.

[roc]

Good daily news must be free, because the facts are free and there are too many places that will freely distribute those facts.

Good content, on the other hand, does not have to be daily news. Which is the distinction I wish more newspaper companies would understand. You'll never get people to pay for box scores or reprints from the AP/Reuters. You will get people to pay for investigative journalism, quality insight, in depth reporting, etc.

The Times would have a better chance at monetizing if they stuck to such a 'members' section concept. Another under-appreciated fact overlooked in most monetization schemes: people will pay for the ability to comment and be given preferential comment placement. And when only subscribers can comment, it's far easier to police for spam and moderate for civility.

[robg]

Are the facts really free? Take what's happening in Haiti. What's free there? Seems like a lot of very difficult work to me.

Interesting last point. Citation?

[roc]

There's certainly a one-time cost in gathering and validating facts (though I'd be surprised if much time at all was spent validating these days). But as facts can't be protected as intellectual property, they will inevitably be repeated, bringing the ultimate cost to consumers down to the cost of distribution. Which, today, is pretty close to $0.

Also, increasingly, facts are self-reported by the audience. Who needs an international bureau when they can simply search for native sources? (e.g. Where does the average reader get their facts regarding the Iranian protests?) Events involving widespread infrastructure failure (Haiti) are an exception.

... You want a citation for it being easier to moderate paying subscribers vs anonymous posts?

[robg]

The Iranian protests are a good example where we don't know the impact without some context. They appear powerful and yet it could just be a vocal (and tech savvy) minority.

Where do people pay to comment and get preferential placement?

[roc]

The Iranian protests also draw into sharp relief the assumption of quality on the part of information gathering by 'real' news sources.

How long was it until American news even acknowledged the protests existed? And how much are they truly vetting their facts, when they run transparent propaganda (government dismissal of the actions of a 'few hundred' when nearly a dozen independent sources contributed pictures of at least tens of thousands) and trivially photoshop 'counter-demonstrations'?

Citizen-journalism has its flaws, but it's very similar to the case of Wikipedia (for lack of a more succinct explanation): Any one person could easily post lies, but lies tend to get exposed and corrected. And in the aggregate, it's more accurate than any individual 'expert' or 'authoritative' source.

Fark is the stand-by example of preferential comment treatment. TotalFark subscribers are kicking in $5/mo for early access to a veritable cess pit of dupes and spam, in exchange for getting first crack at discussion and token member features.

I also have personal experience with several small discussion boards that went for-pay specifically to squash spam and cover the moderator costs of abusive behavior.

It's pretty easy to see where making people give you $5 before they can post shifts the economics of spamming, flaming, harassing, etc.

[Quarrelsome]

Perhaps the term is "cheap" instead. Because once someone has broadcast "the facts" it is very cheap to inform everyone else.

[robg]

How do you properly compensate those that do the hardest work in getting "the facts" if endless copies can be made cheaply?

I suppose the answer is something like iTunes for the news. However, I'm not confident that market forces can pick the best reporting. I mean, Fox News does really well financially. How many people do they have in Haiti?

[roc]

The difficult-to-collect facts would be those necessary for in-depth and investigative pieces. I specifically called that out above as being pay-worthy. I can absolutely see for-pay access to those news pieces.

What doesn't work --can't work-- is charging for things like box scores, election results, stock news, press releases, traffic/crime/weather. (Excepting perhaps extremely time-sensitive subsets of that data.)

And if the NYTimes isn't discriminating between their quality, signature content and simple daily news - the customer isn't going to either. They're just going to be frustrated that if they try to use the NY Times for more than 1 big story a month, they're penalized. Or, god forbid, try to read the NYTimes.com at work, at the library or at a coffee shop...