Comments on: UK’s Sunday Times Preparing To Lose 90 Percent Of Traffic Behind Paywall? http://paidcontent.org/2010/05/19/419-sunday-times-preparing-to-lose-90-percent-of-traffic-behind-paywall/ The economics of digital content Tue, 21 May 2013 07:31:27 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Ronan http://paidcontent.org/2010/05/19/419-sunday-times-preparing-to-lose-90-percent-of-traffic-behind-paywall/#comment-78609 Thu, 20 May 2010 12:53:26 +0000 http://paidcontent.wp.gostage.it/2010/05/19/419-sunday-times-preparing-to-lose-90-percent-of-traffic-behind-paywall/#comment-78609 90% of revenues come from 10% of users, so as long as they keep the 10% of users who represent the 90% of revenues, they’ll be making the right decision and can grow from there.

]]> By: jackthoro http://paidcontent.org/2010/05/19/419-sunday-times-preparing-to-lose-90-percent-of-traffic-behind-paywall/#comment-78608 Thu, 20 May 2010 08:04:52 +0000 http://paidcontent.wp.gostage.it/2010/05/19/419-sunday-times-preparing-to-lose-90-percent-of-traffic-behind-paywall/#comment-78608 10% conversion free to paid isn’t bad :)

What do unique users matter anyway if they’re a cost rather than profit center?

]]> By: Crosbie Fitch http://paidcontent.org/2010/05/19/419-sunday-times-preparing-to-lose-90-percent-of-traffic-behind-paywall/#comment-78607 Wed, 19 May 2010 13:29:35 +0000 http://paidcontent.wp.gostage.it/2010/05/19/419-sunday-times-preparing-to-lose-90-percent-of-traffic-behind-paywall/#comment-78607 Imagine the newspaper is a devout believer, and that copyright is their religion. They are embarking upon an act of faith comparable to believing that if they close their eyes they can walk through a pride of hungry lions and not only pass through unscathed but scavenge a side of beef along the way.

As even they hint at, the business of selling copies and protecting a monopoly on the manufacture of those copies is coming to an end. The future is in journalism, not producing ‘news’ as content to fill copies up with. The future of the journalism business is selling journalism to those members of the public who want it produced and published so they can receive it.

The moment of apostasy comes at the point you realise that when you’re selling journalism instead of copies, the last thing you want is to discourage anyone from promoting your writing. The last thing you want is to sue your readers for making their own copies, or even newspapers for printing it for that matter. The last thing you want is an 18th century monopoly designed for the Stationer’s Guild.

If you want to sell your journalism you need as many readers as possible. When your readers are the pool from which your paying customers spawn you want more of them, not less. A paywall to a journalist is like a convent to a prostitute. It may be a way of preventing the sacrilege of unauthorised copies, but there ain’t much business there.

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