My uneducated prediction on pay-for-content news

In my earlier post, I made the suggestion that pay-for-content news was possible, even probable, but that I didn't know how it was likely to look.  I wanted to separate that relatively educated opinion with a separate, relatively uneducated (about the news media), prediction about what the actual mechanism will be that will get people to pay for news content on-line.  Here are my thoughts:

First, it won't be micro-payments.  There are some ways that micro-payments work, but I think from a psychological point of view, you don't want people making the decision over and over each time they click on a story or newspaper site.  Therefore, I predict some form of subscription service.

Second, it won't be "paying for content", which people will have trouble stomaching, but rather "paying for speed".  Imagine if the New York Times were simply delayed two hours unless you had the subscription.  All content would be available for searching and indexing and redistribution, but two hours later for those without the subscription.  This would eliminate the issues the New York Times originally had with subscriptions and not being available for Google-indexing, but would provide an experience that would benefit users.  In fact, it might not have to be two hours, perhaps one hour or even thirty minutes.  Anything to make people feel like they were getting the scoop.  It might also be that the videos would load faster, the pages would load faster, anything that would allow the premium customer to obtain a more desired experience.

People may remember the speaker at Lotusphere a couple of years back who described how Starbucks had made coffee-buying into more of an experience than a product, and thus were able to charge much more.  Starbucks may be struggling at the moment, but the point is still valid.  Pay-for-content news will probably only work when it is really pay-for-experience news, and when the price buys timeliness or speed or something that people value, rather than actual content.

The exact mechanics will be developed by somebody smarter than me, I imagine.

What has been said:

852.1. Nathan T. Freeman (08/10/2009 05:30 PM)

This model is already in place. The names Bloomberg or Thompson mean anything to you? :-)

852.2. Nathan T. Freeman (08/10/2009 05:31 PM)

And... DUH... Reuters. How'd I forget that one?

852.3. Ben Langhinrichs (08/10/2009 06:19 PM)

@Nathan - Well, A model is already in place, perhaps, but THE model? Nope, I've heard of Bloomberg and Reuters, not Thompson, but know nothing about their models. Care to explain how they work, and whether it addresses the points I made? I'd be happy to hear more.

I should note that I do not watch almost any TV, I do not drink much bottled water, and I do not use iTunes, and yet I am familiar with all of those models, so even if these three have a model going, they possibly have a ways to go before it is the recognized solution.

852.4. Richard Schwartz (08/11/2009 04:00 AM)

I don't pay for news content, but I do pay for presentation of news content. I have a paid subscription to Times Reader, which gives me access to the same information that I can get via the NY Times web site for free (and via links in their RSS feeds or via their email lists), but it gives it to me in an Adobe AIR application that looks better and lets me read the content while I'm disconnected from the network.