The other day Doc Searls; who I consider one of the smartest people around, wrote an interesting post asking if journals could live on subscriptions. My basic take-away from it was that he was suggesting that indeed they could albeit not as profitably. He points out that direct support from readers matters more in a world where advertising is contributing less and less.
In our world today though it doesn’t matter if advertising is providing less of a bottom line for business – especially the news and information industry. That’s because there is a big monster in the room and it is one that has always been a part of the human make-up, as well as being heavily promoted in the Internet age. It is this sense of entitlement to free stuff.
Before we go any further let’s clarify one thing. There always has and always will be a segment of society that will never ever pay for anything that they don’t have to. From people copying music to cassette and making copies for their friends to the satellite busters who rather than pay subscriptions (one of Doc’s preferences) would fork over a few dollars for their monthly numbers.
With this segment of society there is no middle ground. For them part of the whole process is the hunt for a cheaper of free alternative. Software piracy has been going on since pretty well the first commercial, or shareware, program went up for sale. Hell, we’ll even go to the point of dumpster diving in order to get something for free. So no matter what model we try to come up with for these industries that are teetering on the brink they won’t matter to a fairly hefty part of our society.
Some might say that I am over stating this segment but to them I would say you’ve been living on the wrong side of those rose colored glasses for too long. I know whereof I speak as I have known people like this and they almost wear this way of life as a badge of honor.
Sure there are people like Doc Searls who like to believe that given the option to help pay and support good services people will line up to do so. Unfortunately this portion of our society is not as large as one might assume. It is the attitude however that seems to permeate through the Internet tech blogosphere which in of itself is a very small portion of the larger Internet.
In the middle of this though is the largest group of consumers many of whom are still reluctant to even buy anything online, let alone pay for news and information. This attitude however is compounded by the fact that we are all being bombarded each and every day by people telling us that everything on the Internet should be free. From the freenomics philosophy through to massive social networks built around the whole idea of being free.
The whole economic model of Web 2.0 and social media is built around this idea of free. Even though many services are discovering that this maybe more of a train wreck model the idea of everything being free has been firmly planted in one of the largest consumer bases we have ever seen. For this consumer base Free has become the new byword.
This might be a Pandora’s Box that we have open but regardless the monster is loose and nothing is going to put it back in the box. No amount of subscriptions is going to return former massively profitable business like the news industry back at the top of the money mountain. Those days are gone and while subscriptions may be one way to maintain a business it won’t bring any glory days back.
And we only have ourselves to blame.
Gimme Gimme – I want my stuff for free
Steve,
You might be right. Thing is, we don't know — and we won't know until we have more systems of payment, and more data to tell us who is willing to do what.
It's still early.
Before iTunes came along, the percentage of people online who never payed for music verged on 100%. But iTunes made payment easy. Millions of people are willing to pay 99¢ per song, it turns out.
But that gives us only two data points on the easy side of the chart: free and 99¢. On the hard side of the chart are lots of sites where you can pay, with more friction. (For example, by going to any of the many voluntary payment sites, all different, all taking time and energy to deal with.)
We need more data points.
All I propose is making it easy for anybody to pay whatever they like for stuff that's already free for the taking — and to do it with little friction. And then see what happens.
By the way, I'm not just proposing subscriptions as The Answer to anything. I'm pointing to one successful case involving subscriptions, and acknowledging subscriptions as one among a number of voluntary payment models. That number needs to go up.
With subscriptions, the seller has the pricing gun. With PayChoice, the buyer has the pricing gun. The buyer also has the accounting system . That's what ListenLog is about.
If we get to try both on the Public Radio Tuner, of which there are already way over a million in the world, we should have a few data points to work with.
But meanwhile I beg your patience. We're still at the beginning of building both ListenLog and PayChoice. And we can use all the help we can get.
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Steve,
You might be right. Thing is, we don't know — and we won't know until we have more systems of payment, and more data to tell us who is willing to do what.
It's still early.
Before iTunes came along, the percentage of people online who never payed for music verged on 100%. But iTunes made payment easy. Millions of people are willing to pay 99¢ per song, it turns out.
But that gives us only two data points on the easy side of the chart: free and 99¢. On the hard side of the chart are lots of sites where you can pay, with more friction. (For example, by going to any of the many voluntary payment sites, all different, all taking time and energy to deal with.)
We need more data points.
All I propose is making it easy for anybody to pay whatever they like for stuff that's already free for the taking — and to do it with little friction. And then see what happens.
By the way, I'm not just proposing subscriptions as The Answer to anything. I'm pointing to one successful case involving subscriptions, and acknowledging subscriptions as one among a number of voluntary payment models. That number needs to go up.
With subscriptions, the seller has the pricing gun. With PayChoice, the buyer has the pricing gun. The buyer also has the accounting system . That's what ListenLog is about.
If we get to try both on the Public Radio Tuner, of which there are already way over a million in the world, we should have a few data points to work with.
But meanwhile I beg your patience. We're still at the beginning of building both ListenLog and PayChoice. And we can use all the help we can get.
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Thanks for dropping by Doc. Don't get me wrong it would be nice if the subscription model (of any kind) would work I'm just not sure of its long term viability to provide any more of an income base for news and information sites on the web. That said I'll keep watching things like PayChoice because one never knows if there might be a magic bullet (or bullets) out there.
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Thanks for dropping by Doc. Don't get me wrong it would be nice if the subscription model (of any kind) would work I'm just not sure of its long term viability to provide any more of an income base for news and information sites on the web. That said I'll keep watching things like PayChoice because one never knows if there might be a magic bullet (or bullets) out there.
Like or Dislike:
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