[jpdoctor]

> Because charging for content on the web doesn't work.

Yes it does, but the competition is extreme and not very many people are good at making it an honest-to-god business with profit.

If you are good at it, you make money hand-over-fist at the moment.

[fooandbarify]

Are you talking about information products or paywalls or something else entirely?

[peto123]

I believe he is talking about the web's equivalent of newspaper or magazine. Like whole magazine published as a website, where users would pay for each "issue" or monthly access. This model doesn't work, with maybe a few very rare exceptions.

[dmorgan]

>If you are good at it, you make money hand-over-fist at the moment.

I don't know of any web news site (that's what we're discussing, we're not talking about the general case of "charging for content on the web", e.g software, music, video, etc) that makes money "hand-over-fist". Quite the opposite.

And the "if you're good at it" is tautological fluff --if you are talking about web news outlets.

If you have problems monetizing a news site with quality content and readers interested in it, then it's proof that "charging for content on the web doesn't work", not that "you're not good at it". In content providing, "good at it" just means: the content is good, and a fair number of readers want to read it.

On the web, this has only worked with ad-supported sites (which means you need to attract many many readers, and thus lower the quality of the copy/make it more generic, to do so) or with vertical, industry specific content for audiences that can afford it (the Economist, for example).

[state_machine]

To what industry is The Economist specific?

[dmorgan]

It's called "The Economist".

So, a not so wild guess would be: the finance industry, and business and policy circles second, that is Washington, Wall Street, Soho and the like guys, with wannabe "sophisticated" money grubbers an influential third.

[cschmidt]

I think the name (a holdover from the 1800's) puts a lot of people off. As bcbrown said, it is really just the news magazine for smart people. There is a section on Finance and Economics, but it isn't any bigger than the Science section, say.

It would probably appeal to many HN readers, as it has a global, smart outlook. They cover things you don't hear about elsewhere. It is my primary source for news (I listen to the audio edition each week on my commute.)

[bcbrown]

Not really. It's like Newsweek or Time, but more international, and more in depth. It's certainly skewed towards the financial, but it's really just a news periodical.

[tsieling]

In previous decades, yes, but it's moved substantially from that view to more of a world events and analysis.