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Last night as a result of reading Clay Shirky's recent blog post about the Times paywall, Jono and I got into a discussion about paying for the internet.
We pay for the internet in the form of the broadband connection, so that we can have access to all the content of the internet, but we're not actually paying the content producers. In fact, a lot of the content producers on the internet pay to have their content online, in the form of server hosts and time spent on designing the website, etc.
But is there any part of the internet that you would pay for specifically?
For me, I'm willing to pay for services. For example, every few months I get a one-month account on LJ so that I can create new RSS feeds. Basically, I'm paying $1 per RSS feed that I want to direct to my friends page. Sure, I can use a free feed reader, but I'm willing to pay for the service of having it delivered to my friends page. If the New York Times or BBC World News ever starts charging for their RSS feed (say, $1/month), I would pay for it, just as I "pay" for NPR to send their radio signals into my car. In essence, I am willing to pay for delivery of content, if it's content that I value enough to check every day, and your service saves me the effort of doing so.
I'm not willing to pay for the content of the news -- if I have to make the effort of trawling the web to find, say, a specific news article about Buffalo Bill, I expect it to be free. Likewise, if I have to pay to read your forum or webcomic, I probably would find something else to read.
I am also not willing to pay for access to general information. If you put something behind a pay wall, well, I'll just go find something else, because I'm the active one expending effort to do the seeking. On the other hand, if your content is something that I can't get elsewhere, and something that I need, then I'm willing to pay for it. For example, if I needed to find articles on JSTOR every day, I might be willing to pay for that specific access, but only if I really need it, and can't get it anywhere else. (And I'm willing to spend half an hour trying to find it somewhere else for free.) And once I needed to read 1 article from a 1920s New Yorker within the next hour. So I was willing to pay the $1 to read that article instead of expending the energy to find it elsewhere. In that case, I suppose I'm paying for the service that the website performs by compiling all that information in a handy place (scanning the old New Yorkers, making them searchable, etc). I donate to Wikipedia.
I'm also willing to pay for the sense of belonging to a group -- in the form of buying t-shirts and books from my favorite webcomics artists.
And of course I'm willing to pay for physical objects that get shipped to me and that I can use in the real world, as evidenced by my Amazon addiction.
We pay for the internet in the form of the broadband connection, so that we can have access to all the content of the internet, but we're not actually paying the content producers. In fact, a lot of the content producers on the internet pay to have their content online, in the form of server hosts and time spent on designing the website, etc.
But is there any part of the internet that you would pay for specifically?
For me, I'm willing to pay for services. For example, every few months I get a one-month account on LJ so that I can create new RSS feeds. Basically, I'm paying $1 per RSS feed that I want to direct to my friends page. Sure, I can use a free feed reader, but I'm willing to pay for the service of having it delivered to my friends page. If the New York Times or BBC World News ever starts charging for their RSS feed (say, $1/month), I would pay for it, just as I "pay" for NPR to send their radio signals into my car. In essence, I am willing to pay for delivery of content, if it's content that I value enough to check every day, and your service saves me the effort of doing so.
I'm not willing to pay for the content of the news -- if I have to make the effort of trawling the web to find, say, a specific news article about Buffalo Bill, I expect it to be free. Likewise, if I have to pay to read your forum or webcomic, I probably would find something else to read.
I am also not willing to pay for access to general information. If you put something behind a pay wall, well, I'll just go find something else, because I'm the active one expending effort to do the seeking. On the other hand, if your content is something that I can't get elsewhere, and something that I need, then I'm willing to pay for it. For example, if I needed to find articles on JSTOR every day, I might be willing to pay for that specific access, but only if I really need it, and can't get it anywhere else. (And I'm willing to spend half an hour trying to find it somewhere else for free.) And once I needed to read 1 article from a 1920s New Yorker within the next hour. So I was willing to pay the $1 to read that article instead of expending the energy to find it elsewhere. In that case, I suppose I'm paying for the service that the website performs by compiling all that information in a handy place (scanning the old New Yorkers, making them searchable, etc). I donate to Wikipedia.
I'm also willing to pay for the sense of belonging to a group -- in the form of buying t-shirts and books from my favorite webcomics artists.
And of course I'm willing to pay for physical objects that get shipped to me and that I can use in the real world, as evidenced by my Amazon addiction.
