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| Post-it note for a digital subscription to The New Yorker and LA Mag: Hopeless on so many levels |
I felt the urge to
jot down the above post-it note about two months ago while conducting some
personal internet-based research at work.
Glancing at the reminder precariously sitting on my work desk (the
stickiness mostly gone by now), the argument against pay walls seems blatantly
obvious.
Like most other
Gen-Y kids, my limited resources and feelings of uncertainty about the economy make
me wary of monthly payments and unnecessary expenditures. I can get great information and entertainment
for free on countless other sites. So I
do. And in turn The New Yorker goes on a
“wish list” for later. But later could
be anywhere from a year to ten years from now.
Since I don’t think I’m the only one prioritizing in such a way, the
business model seems a tad flawed.
In Free, Chris Anderson describes “one of
the most powerful marketing tools of the twentieth century: giving away one
thing to create demand for another.” In
the age of digital journalism, the content on news websites is the free thing,
and the targeted ads is the other. The
“route from product to revenue [is] indirect” on a free news site, in that
readers don’t pay directly for access to the articles. Instead the advertisers pay the websites for
ad space.
The
sometimes-creepy targeted ad tactics are a cost I can deal with, especially
considering that the ads can actually helpful.
I’ve discovered new bands, found out about concerts, and learned about
new products and companies that really do interest me because of targeted
advertising. Being exposed to an ad
doesn’t force me to buy anything, it just increases the chances. In other words, a demand is created
(sometimes) where there wasn’t one before.
Sure, not all the kinks have been worked out perfectly, but every
industrial revolution has its period of transition.
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