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WebWord Weblog Posting Posting Date: May 18, 2003 Printwash (Doc Searls) "The bottom line: In the age of the Web, the practice of charging for access to digital archives is a collossal anachronism. It's time for The New York Times and the other papers to step forward, join the real world and correct the problem. Expose the archives. Give them permanent URLs. Let in the bots. Let their writers, and their reputations, accept the credit they are constantly given and truly deserve. In other words, stop the printwash." (Comments: But Doc, how can they make money? Archives generate money that is used to create new stories, right?)
Reader Comments...
That doc is a quack. Posted by: S.General on May 19, 2003 09:49 AM
Because if you wait long enough then all your local competitors will start charging for access, leaving you with the lions share of readers and the ability to charge appropriately high advertising rates.
This is what free markets are for - to find the best approach by experiment. Some publishers will use subscriptions / archive access charges to fund better content, and will flourish. Some will stay free and will get enough readers. Some will charge but try to treat the income as pure profit, and will go down the drain because paying for access wil buy thier readers nothing special. Posted by: Philip Chalmers on May 19, 2003 04:40 PM
Doesn't the NYTimes already make money through advertising on their site? Why would the archives be any different? 'Sides, they're archives... the content has already been paid for a long, long time ago. Posted by: Francis Wu on May 20, 2003 12:00 PM
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