jan 24
2008
5 comments
Ben says I should lobby for a tie, but I agree I lost this one. You can just take the $50 out of what you owe me for the hookers and blow that one night. Wait, was that you?
posted by Jim Ray at 4:48 PM on January 24, 2008 
NO WAY is that a tie. They're actually upping the price, so it's more like $100.
But seriously, I'm pretty happy about this one. I mean, not as a consumer, but as a media better. NO ONE was predicting this -- it was a foregone conclusion everywhere.
posted by Rex at 4:53 PM on January 24, 2008
I've always tried to argue that the perceived value of the content is tied to the price you pay for it.
While making it free opens up for more readers and linking, ultimately it becomes throw-away at the end of the day.
posted by taulpaul at 6:05 PM on January 24, 2008
I'm not sure I agree, taulpaul. And there are plenty of ad-supported mediums (e.g. NYTimes) that I respect. And there's plenty of mags I paid for that I threw away in disgust.
Perceived quality has much more to do with journalism-standards than with money. Of course maintaining these standards cost money, so for some charging works better, and for others ads.
posted by Vincent at 6:11 PM on January 24, 2008
"Perceived value" is too relative for me. I came to my conclusion based purely on the numbers -- WSJ.com would have to increase traffic by something like 20 fold to get the required advertising bump to off-set subscriptions.
(Also, just to be clear, I was a critic of Times Select and CNN's Pipeline from the start. I'm not some sort of "paid content" lunatic.)
posted by Rex at 8:44 PM on January 24, 2008
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