Quote:
Originally Posted by Maggy J
It's all been dumbed down for years because news proprietors have cut everything to bare bones in the name of profit..Even news sources have been severely reduced to cut costs.They are now losing money on hard copies so have to start charging on the internet versions to try and maintain what profits they can..However they have failed entirely to realise that the internet is used by people who aren't that keen to pay for what was free originally and will just go and find another 'free' version.
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Broadsheet newspapers haven't made money for years with only a few exceptions (Financial Times). The Guardian and The Telegraph have laid off staff in recent months and it certainly wasn't done to maximise profits it was done to stem unsustainable losses. The proprietors have been subsidising these newspapers for a long time now. The Internet has been one of biggest reasons why they're losing money and they've been expected to put their content online for free. It's clearly not a sustainable way to run an organisation.
I think they're well aware people on the Internet want content for free and that's why they've been resisting paywalls for so long but it can't continue any longer. There hasn't been the solution to make free online Journalism work and they've had to go to the only recourse left to them. Charge the users. In the end I don't think they care if people go elsewhere to get their free content. Even if only 1% stick around and pay that is 1% more than they would be getting before.
---------- Post added at 11:59 ---------- Previous post was at 11:56 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
And, speaking of Murdoch, it begins to appear that he was ahead of the game (again) ... his enemies predicted the Times paywall experiment would flop. It didn't. The FT has since followed. Now the Telegraph and the Sun are following suit. We are very soon going to end up with all our national newspapers charging for their content and, I have to say, I can't blame them for it.
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And the content behind The Times' paywall is good. None of
this rubbish.