News Website Paywalls

Recently The Age and sister sites, Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times, Canberra Times and WAToday along with the Herald Sun introduced a 'pay to view' system to their websites. That is, you have to pay a fee to view individual articles on their websites. They also let you view 30 or so articles for free before the pay wall kicks in.

I'm not sure about you however I refuse to pay for digital content especially where their websites are plastered with adverts everywhere. I also like reading the news everyday though and find the paper version clunky and cumbersome. Spending an hour or so clicking through the various stories is my daily ritual.

This is the way you get around the need to pay (I'm sorry if you've paid for your subscription). Once you reach the article limit (30 in the case of The Age) all you have to do is delete your cookies in the browser you are using. All browsers should be able to delete the cookies for single websites. Once you delete the cookies the article count resets to zero and your good to go again. Just a reminder though, if you have an online account with these sites, don't login.

I'm sure these websites will come up with something else in the future but this may save you a few dollars in the meantime :)

The printed version of the paper also has advertising, and there's still a cost to get a copy. I think we should expect to pay for journalism, regardless of the format we choose to read it. If we don't pay, eventually all we will get is blogs and biased articles funded by those with the most money.

I have happily signed up for my subscription, and would respectfully suggest that anybody who reads more than 30 articles should consider doing the same.

cheers,

ajw

I agree with ajw, (mostly) but what gets me is how things are free until we are all sucked in, then they hit us with the charges, they did it with credit cards and ATMs as well.
Regards

I found a different way to get around the paywalls. I would never buy a paper copy of the HeraldSun, have never read even one article on their website, so what they do doesn't bother me.

I do read some articles on The Age website, but do more headline scanning than anything else, so I doubt that the 30 articles will be a limiting factor for me.

I find that over the last 12 months or so I have gravitated to 2 news websites I am already paying for as a taxpayer, ABC News and SBS News, a far wider news coverage on both and both realise there is a whole world outside of Australia and sports wise, a whole world of sport outside of Ozzie Rules.Coincidentally, these are also the only TV news services I watch.

The last time I regularly bought newspapers was in the mid 1990s and that was to get access to the classifieds, the comics for a bit of a laugh, basic sports info, and the odd bit of news analysis.

So what's happened?
The on line classifieds exceeds the performance of news papers by several orders of magnitudes.
My near, as well as my less desirable, network sends me all manner of funnies every day that I don't, even in retirement, have time to read or view.
Sports wise I've gorn off it, too many hangers on and players just rorting the system.
If I want analysis on some topic it's often not that hard to do your own, especially given how much of what appears in newspapers is coloured by some media moguls agenda.
And for the occasional what's going on there is as BS says ABC and SBS.

The printed papers had a large workforce, buildings, paper, printing ink, printers, delivery trucks etc etc. They still made large profit. The online versions still have all the advertising without the costs. I also refuse to pay.

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Originally Posted by Homeleigh

The printed papers had a large workforce, buildings, paper, printing ink, printers, delivery trucks etc etc. They still made large profit. The online versions still have all the advertising without the costs. I also refuse to pay.

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I'm not defending them but they don't have anywhere near their former proportion of the total advertising $.
They used to get a heap from classifieds which is all gone and there are now many more TV channels including cable whichhas channelled a heap of mony away from them.
Plus on-line advertizing doesn't actually generate much revenue.

No sympathy though, their time came and has now gone so lets move on.

Don't expect too much diversity in coverage these days - both the Fairfax and the News Limited papers have had a major reduction in journo numbers, and by major, I mean about half.

Fairfax is shedding 1,900 jobs over the next three years (includes 280 editorial) and News Limited has shed some 500 editorial positions, most of whom have already gone.

So for Fairfax, you'll find the stories on a topic are now written by the same journo across the SMH, The Age and the Canberra Times, rather than a reporter from each paper, and the same is being done with News Limited papers.

Personally the only site I'd spend money on would be Crikey.com, and if you're into economic coverage, the blogs of Peter Martin and Ross Gittins will give you much better analysis than the papers anyway.

For casual users of the Fairfax websites, it is still free. They have introduced a subscription fee for people who make greater use of the sites. By my calculations, I'm paying about 72 cents per day for my iPad access to the SMH app, and given I'd read many more than 30 items on most days, I think the cost is tiny.

Many people use the ABC sites, as I do, but if you're using the Fairfax sites extensively, then I think it's reasonable to pay something towards the costs of generating the content. To me, fInding ways to circumvent the counting of stories read is like stealing the newspaper from the newsagent. If you don't like the cost, choose another website that's free.

if you think that Fairfax is a rich organisation, have a look at what's happened to the share price over the past few years. They are attempting to make the massive switch to the digital age, and it is inevitable that consumers will need to pay if they want the business to survive.

ajw

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Originally Posted by Scott

Recently The Age and sister sites, Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times, Canberra Times and WAToday along with the Herald Sun introduced a 'pay to view' system to their websites. That is, you have to pay a fee to view individual articles on their websites. They also let you view 30 or so articles for free before the pay wall kicks in.

I'm not sure about you however I refuse to pay for digital content especially where their websites are plastered with adverts everywhere. I also like reading the news everyday though and find the paper version clunky and cumbersome. Spending an hour or so clicking through the various stories is my daily ritual.

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I also will not pay for clunky slow d/l with ads auto opening. As for 'quality journalism' that died out years ago now it depends on what party they pander to or whichever agenda they are pushing this week. News Ltd the libs SMH, ABC & SBS Labor, Crikey well its biased as well mainly alp & greens. I now listen to the radio and tend to concentrate on doing my thing as the other leads to argy bargy when discussed like religion etc. I have a shed tools and a few good friends and that along with family will do me.
Pete

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ajw

The printed version of the paper also has advertising, and there's still a cost to get a copy. I think we should expect to pay for journalism, regardless of the format we choose to read it. If we don't pay, eventually all we will get is blogs and biased articles funded by those with the most money.

I have happily signed up for my subscription, and would respectfully suggest that anybody who reads more than 30 articles should consider doing the same.

cheers,

ajw

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+1.

The Age isn't a charity.....it's a business.

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Originally Posted by kiwigeo

+1.

The Age isn't a charity.....it's a business.

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You could just about apply that premise to any website. Would you pay to read this website? It is, after all, a business.

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Originally Posted by Scott

You could just about apply that premise to any website. Would you pay to read this website? It is, after all, a business.

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Yes many websites are technically businesses but not all businesses are run with the prime intention of making a profit.

The Age website is the online front for The Age newspaper......a newspaper produced by Fairfax Media..a business run with the intention of making a profit.

While promoting Ubeat products may be one function of Neil's forum I think most will agree that providing a means for woodworkers to interact and share information is the prime focus of The Ubeaut forums. If Neil makes a profit from the forum then that doesn't bother me...forums cost money to run.

In answer to your question...yes I'd gladly pay to read this forum. Most people who think newspapers should be free also think forums don't cost anything to run.

You've got it all backwards. The reader isn't buying the product. The product is the readership, that the publisher sells to the advertisers. Paying for newspapers is really just about establishing reliable data - if they were free hobo's would line their cardboard boxes with them while spiking the distribution numbers.

Paywalls are a sign of a sinking ship. It wont be enough to ensure the long term viability of their business, especially when accompanied by a slip of quality due to having no staff to write articles.

Why do people as a rule think that everything on the internet should be free?