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

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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?

I always thought the internet was about freely sharing information, not supporting old business models.

Personally, I'd be happy if commercial news websites paywalled themselves off the internet entirely - my limit for "(insert sporting team here) wins final" and "Kim Kardasian's bottom gets its own postcode" news starts at 'never, ever, tell me about it' and decreases from there.

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Originally Posted by q9

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.

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Newspapers in particular and magazines to a lesser extent have alwyas been sold at below cost and they are subsidised, by advertising. A successful publication had much more advertising content than editorial.

Advertisiers flocked to the publications that had the largest circulation or readership (they are not the same). I hadn't thought about the relationship between payment and data, although there may be a element of that. However I think sheer cash would be the primary motive as many websites have counters on them that record the number of "hits."

The owner of the Forums can tell you how many have visited the site everyday and probably break it down into the many individual forums. I have no problem with that.

I don't really have a problem with the media trying to get viewers to pay for extended use of their services. The choice is individual. I pretty much choose to ignore them all, am very content to watch, listen and surf the ABC and sincerely hope the next federal goverment will do nothing to reduce these services. I already pay for them via taxes

Regards
Paul

My post above was not specific to news on the net rather the concept that seems to have grown of everything on the net should be free. I can't see where that was ever written in stone and why the expectation has grown.

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Originally Posted by Chris Parks

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

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That's the wrong question. The real question is why do old businesses think the internet should change to suit the way they want to operate?

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Originally Posted by q9

That's the wrong question. The real question is why do old businesses think the internet should change to suit the way they want to operate?

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No, the question should be....if I choose to provide a service vai the internet and charge for that service why shouldn't those that choose to not pay for it? I ask the question again, where is it written that everything on the net must be free, I can't find it.

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Originally Posted by Chris Parks

...... the concept that seems to have grown of everything on the net should be free. I can't see where that was ever written in stone and why the expectation has grown.

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Quite simple really. Ever since Microsoft put out the first MSDos which crashed so regularly that every 6 months you needed an upgrade or get a hacker to fix it.

Most choose the hacker option and the early precursor to the internet (remember dedicated bulletin boards you dialed directly into by bypassing the old PMG metering system:o ) was awash with people helping each other and developing freeware software.

So the fault is clearly with Microsoft. :~ :~


Peter.

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Originally Posted by Big Shed

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.

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i do look at the smh and age online and wouldn't pay for either physical newspaper nor for them online, not even for column 8 and the moir, pope, campbell and wilcox cartoons (which i think are the best)

also use abc news but all those news sources have limitations too ... i reckon there is a "laziness" with the journos there ... too much regurgitate the press release type journalism and not much (or at least thorough analysis) ... maybe not the fault of the journos themselves

in the herald, the gittins items are an exception (as was jessica irvine's pieces although i haven't seen anything from her for a long while) ... if i am looking for analysis that i don't have to do myself, i go to conversation.com.au ... generally pretty good and have a disclaimer about any interests that the author might have that could affect the piece ... that may not be perfect mind you but is much better than the papers ... they have interesting pieces at the moment of "fact checkers" analysing some of the pollies' stuff

i actually don't have television any more (by choice since year 2000) but would consider it most untrustworthy anyway ... i listen to news radio or radio national in the car but otherwise get my news from the internet


regards david

Meh. Sites that want to monetize their content should simply add:

User-Agent: *
Disallow: /

To their robots.txt file.

Problem solved. No freeloaders.

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Originally Posted by Chris Parks

No, the question should be....if I choose to provide a service vai the internet and charge for that service why shouldn't those that choose to not pay for it? I ask the question again, where is it written that everything on the net must be free, I can't find it.

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Silly question which has an obvious answer. My answer is that the internet (net) IS free (it's written here). The infrastructure that enables it isn't. A great percentage of websites are placed there to sell something, be it ideology, physical items or ideas. Some websites are simply for entertainment. The onus is upon the provider of the webpage to generate enough interest to support the existence of the website. As one astute reader on this thread stated, when you start asking for payment, then you're in trouble.

So now Chris, I must ask the question, where is it written, specifically, that the internet must cost?

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Originally Posted by robbygard

i do look at the smh and age online and wouldn't pay for either physical newspaper nor for them online, not even for column 8 and the moir, pope, campbell and wilcox cartoons (which i think are the best)

also use abc news but all those news sources have limitations too ... i reckon there is a "laziness" with the journos there ... too much regurgitate the press release type journalism and not much (or at least thorough analysis) ... maybe not the fault of the journos themselves

in the herald, the gittins items are an exception (as was jessica irvine's pieces although i haven't seen anything from her for a long while) ... if i am looking for analysis that i don't have to do myself, i go to conversation.com.au ... generally pretty good and have a disclaimer about any interests that the author might have that could affect the piece ... that may not be perfect mind you but is much better than the papers ... they have interesting pieces at the moment of "fact checkers" analysing some of the pollies' stuff

i actually don't have television any more (by choice since year 2000) but would consider it most untrustworthy anyway ... i listen to news radio or radio national in the car but otherwise get my news from the internet


regards david

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David, the website 'conversation.com.au' sounds interesting however the domain itself is up for sale.

Interesting you don't have a TV, I could quite easily do without one. Saying that, I wouldn't be without the internet. Funny thing happened the other day, our kids (7 & 5), have never watched commercial TV but, when they did, they got peed off with the commercials, didn't know what they were!

Hi Scott

I think David is referring to

http://theconversation.com/au

Regards
Danny

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Originally Posted by danny.s

Hi Scott

I think David is referring to

The Conversation: In-depth analysis, research, news and ideas from leading academics and researchers.

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Thanks Danny :2tsup:

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Originally Posted by Scott

David, the website 'conversation.com.au' sounds interesting however the domain itself is up for sale.

Interesting you don't have a TV, I could quite easily do without one. Saying that, I wouldn't be without the internet. Funny thing happened the other day, our kids (7 & 5), have never watched commercial TV but, when they did, they got peed off with the commercials, didn't know what they were!

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sorry my fault theconversation.com.au (or perhaps .edu.au)

i hate television because it drags my attention and i can't help myself ... a while ago i had dinner at the tavern in terrey hills (when my wife was either rehearsing or playing in sydney) ... they always have a couple of sports channels on at any time and i find myself watching tiddlywinks or something just because it is on

i wouldn't be without the internet either ... i sometimes watch dvd's or go to the movies but not even so keen on that

regards david

Quote:

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Originally Posted by danny.s

Hi Scott

I think David is referring to

The Conversation: In-depth analysis, research, news and ideas from leading academics and researchers.

Regards
Danny

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thanks danny ... slow as well as inaccurate typist :D