There is nothing academic or particularly deep about this post. These are just my initial thoughts, prompted by Fairfax Media finally (finally!) announcing a confirmed launch date for its paywalls on The Age and Sydney Morning Herald websites. Beginning on July 2, Fairfax announced yesterday, customers will be limited to 30 free articles per month; if they want to read more than that, they will have to buy a subscription.
Am I going to pay to read news I can get for free on other websites? At the moment, probably not. In the short-term, thinking about AFL news first (because I am a footy fanatic), I reckon I’ll be satisfied with going to the authoritative free site afl.com.au. Plus I have already paid a yearly fee for the AFL iPhone app which gives me every team’s post-match press conferences live so I hear directly from the club coach and players without a media organisation having filtered what they have to say.
What about for local Sydney news? I can keep getting that for free from the ABC site or TV for breaking news or turn on the radio at home or if I’m out, listen to or watch it on my iPhone. If I feel I absolutely have to know what a particular SMH columnist has to say I can pick them up on their Twitter feed or use my monthly allocation of 30 freebies to read their opinion on the SMH site. If I want to know what the Kardashians are up to, again, there’s plenty of free feeds I can go to on social media.
Upon introducing a paywall, I think media organisations are factoring in that they will take a hit in audience numbers in the short term. But I think they’re counting on people becoming used to paying for online content and giving in, if you like, to the new reality and, in the long term, paying for it will just be a normal part of consuming news journalism online, like buying a newspaper used to be a normal thing people did if they wanted to know what was going on in the world. If every other news site also puts up a paywall, so that there is effectively no more free news from an authoritative source, the sooner people will have to adjust to paying for online news.
As long as there are authoritative, trusted, free sites providing the content I want to read, I have no incentive to pay for it. But if all those sites begin charging a fee for entry, of course I will have to pay. Eventually. What about you? Will you pay to read The Age or the SMH from July 2 or wait and see?
Three Deadlines 