I posted this to Facebook a while ago:
My father-in-law very kindly expressed the fact that he certainly had no idea what I meant.
So, here goes:
Large newspapers and — increasingly — small newspapers have begun enacting a technological paywall, a wall between consumers on the internet and the bulk of their content. Different papers do it different ways. Most allow you to read a certain number of free articles within a 30 day period; after you’ve read those articles (commonly 10 articles, see the New York Times and the Toronto Star, for instance), you can’t read additional stories from that paper unless you sign up and pay for an electronic subscription.
As I said originally, I get it. Reporting the news costs money. Good opinion / editorial content costs even more. More than ever, personalities draw visitors. Charging those visitors for access is one way to stay in business.
But is it a good way? I feel like as technology develops, we often make decisions to use it without asking that extra, “Is it good?” Newspapers don’t appear to have asked that about paywalls. They’re doing it, not realizing that they’re driving away any chance of younger consumers ever deciding to subscribe to the print content.
I wonder whether some candor might work instead? Something like: “Hey, you’re reading here a lot. Our cookies say that you’ve enjoyed 258 articles on our site this year. Would you consider subscribing? It’ll help us to continue providing the great content you’ve found here so far.” That’s so crazy, it just might work.