jan 24
2008
5 comments
<a href="http://magnetbox.com/">Ben</a> 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 2008-01-24 16:48:10 
NO WAY is that a tie. They're actually upping the price, so it's more like $100.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br />
posted by Rex at 2008-01-24 16:53:19
I've always tried to argue that the perceived value of the content is tied to the price you pay for it.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> 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 2008-01-24 18:05:28
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. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> 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 2008-01-24 18:11:21
"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.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> (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.)<br /><br />
posted by Rex at 2008-01-24 20:44:18
