Newspaper Paywalls

[gworg]

The Globe and Mail has announced that it will begin charging for online content in the fall of 2012. PostMedia has announced that several of its newspapers will also charge for online content. NYT and WSJ articles are more and more for paid subscribers only.

Globe to charge for online content

I'm curious as to how forum members get their Canadian news now and will they subscribe to digital newspapers. News, particularly business news IMO, has value but there are too many possibilities that make it financially difficult to subscribe to all sources. Discovering the right ones looks like a challenge.

[timlocke]

I subscribe to The Times which has a paywall. I have a print subscription to the National Post and the Economist so I can see all the online content for free should I wish to.

I read the G&M 2 or 3 days a week in paper but I doubt I'd pay for a subscription either online or print.

I don't care about the NYT or WSJ

I get my "local " news from City TV ( I lived in TO for many years so that news is still local to me)

[jshel101]

I usually get my Canadian news through twitter feeds from Calgary Herald and Calgary CTV. I don't think I would subscribe to digital newspapers, not unless I was forced to because of lack of free content. However, I am happy with the content I currently get.

[reidw]

Any newspaper website that starts to charge for their info. gets dropped by me immediately.

[Francois Caron]

Same here. Having to pay for the content AND have my browsing habits tracked and sold to the highest bidder? No thanks!

[nic78]

Horrible mistake. I read the G&M daily, and if I have to pay to read articles I'll just browse else where. They had this set up 5 years ago and dropped it. They should just charge a cheap rate for A News Stand version or PDF downloadable in a App to your iPad.

[Dr.Dave]

The Globe and Mail will roll out its digital subscription package on Oct. 22, providing free online access to most print subscribers and allowing casual readers access to 10 articles a month on its website.

The Globe’s plan provides unlimited access to both the paper’s website and apps to anyone with a five- or six-day subscription to the printed newspaper. Weekend-only subscribers will be asked to pay $4.99 a month for unlimited access, while those without a subscription will be charged $19.99 a month after a one-month, 99-cent trial.

Some components of The Globe’s site will continue to be free to everyone – readers will be able to watch an unlimited number of videos, get stock quotes and read letters to the editor. And readers who find stories through social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook as well as search engines and blogs won’t have those stories count against their monthly cap.

[reidw]

The Globe will rue the day they decided to do this. Never start charging for something you've given away for free up to now. All it does is alienate your customers.

[57]

Their (Paper) customers can still see the articles. Casual visitors can still see 10 per month, plus some other information as mentioned in the link.

[audacity]

Casual visitors can still see 10 per month

And how are they counting? IP addresses wouldn't work. Using cookies? Do they force everyone to register first? My point is that once the mechanism used is known, the means to defeat it becomes obvious.

Honestly, the technology in play here really only supports "full, open access", or "registered (pay) users only". Attempting to implement something in between those two policies will just cause people to implement browser extensions that will bypass the pay wall.

[hugh]

Casual visitors can still see 10 per month

More if they land on the article from Facebook or Twitter.

Attempting to implement something in between those two policies will just cause people to implement browser extensions that will bypass the pay wall.

Yeh you would think so. My belief is that G&M is putting into place the same system used by the WSJ

[magnet]

I enjoyed reading the comments section - more than the article in many cases. I believe by shutting down the openness of the G&M website, they are being penny-wise and pound foolish.

For instance, if DHC had a paywall, how many folks would stick around when there are plenty of other free fish in the sea.

[vango44]

Anybody else notice that the globeandmail.com won't let you see any articles after you've viewed 10 in a month unless you subscribe (20$/month)

I had no problem with their previous scheme of having a few articles marked as premium and available to subscribers-only but I'm disappointed in this new wall.

I just don't see many people paying that much to read a few articles every day.

[Francois Caron]

I simply won't pay attention to them anymore. Even La Presse can't convince me to take one of their free REAL papers at the Montreal metro near my home!

[reidw]

@avango44: Where have you been? The people here have been complaining about this paywall for quite some time. I do agree with you that for most readers $20/month is a bit much just to read a few articles a day, many of which are available from other sources.