The price of news
I’ve been thinking (unlike Richard Prebble ever did) about the move to paywalls around online news. And, like many aspects of the future, I’m not sure what I think (usually a good thing as people convinced they ‘Know’ the future are either a bit mad or alt-right nongs).
If I cast my mind back to the pre-internet days - for those too young to remember there was a day before Google became god - the news was delivered to us in three basic ways.
Network news - free and available to those with a television. It was, as it is today, to inform people biased towards making money by selling advertising space.
Newspapers - a pittance per copy and, as above, heavily in bed with advertisers.
Letters - before emails we used to get letters from overseas that told us what was happening to real people.
The question Raymond K. Hessel is . . . Will it be any different if paywalls become the norm?
I have been, and will continue, to ponder this question as my preliminary, as of today answer, is no.
Not everyone bought newspapers - not everyone will subscribe to online news
Only a tiny minority bought multiple/all newspapers - only a tiny minority will subscribe to the majority of online news sources.
Free news will be available in roughly the same manner as it was. Not all people consumed free news - not all people will consume free news.
Letters have been replaced by what can only be described as an Erebus-sized mountain of e-mails, posts, comments etc etc. The same but different!
Paywalls will, therefore in my mind, not alter the situation drastically.
The real change to consider is the plethora of free news sources who’s goal is not to inform or make money - that needs thinking about.
