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WebWord Weblog Posting Posting Date: January 28, 2003 What Price Content? (ClickZ) -- "Surveys of American consumers routinely conclude newspaper sites don't cannibalize print subscriptions. They actually increase single-copy sales."
Reader Comments...
The article refers to an earlier article by the same author about the economics of CD pricing / file sharing etc. There's been a lot of publicity recently about the record companies dire warnings on the evils of file sharing, but how many people realise that the sales of CDs in the UK went UP last year by 3%? And this in a year when the quality of the music on offer was generally seen as being, shall we say, disappointing. Here's an interesting article on the subject - Why the net won't dampen record sales. Along with the article referenced here, these are the first attempts I've seen to apply standard economic theory to the issue of payment for on-line content. Posted by: Alan Fisher on January 29, 2003 04:25 AM
As much as having access to and keeping "electronic" versions of things is nice and easy (at times), there is something to be said for touching tangible things and buying things you can put onto your shelf e.g. books, CDs etc Posted by: Daniel Szuc on January 29, 2003 08:42 PM
I do not resemble the author's claim. BEFORE: I bought our only town's newspaper every Sunday for classifieds and coupons. NOW: I read the newspaper's web site religiously every day for news. I read the web site classifieds every Sunday. The $1.50 I used to pay for the Sunday edition I never recouped with the coupons I used, so now I do without coupons. And really, I dislike the editorial slant our newspaper puts in news stories. I won't shed a tear if the newspaper goes under. Maybe it will be replaced by something better. I might be enticed to subscribe to a print newspaper if it had a couple full daily pages of good comics. Reading individual comic strips on web sites is so tedious. But my newspaper embraces decrepit dinosaurs like Peanuts, Marmaduke, Heathcliff, Family Circus and a bunch of others that ceased being funny 20 years ago. Those suckers are coasting on reputation alone. I would pay for a *good* news web site. I like that idea because with a CMS it would mean low overhead. A 1 or 2 person news operation would be possible for a given geographic area. I could subscribe to a "neighborhood" news site, and probably have my choice of a few news sites whose coverage area overlaps my interests. Assuming competition was reintroduced to the news market, journalists, editors and publishers would have to try harder to be objective or lose subscribers.
Wonderful, common-sense stuff based on real-world economics. This guy reminds me of me. I guess that's an egotistical thing to say since I just praised his work. Maybe I should have said, "I completely agree with what Mr. Crosbie wrote." Either way. Posted by: boysen on January 31, 2003 03:46 PM
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