Paid Content Not Working Well For The Rocky Mountain News

Back on the 17th Genghis posting over at Ace of Spades pointed out that Steve Brill was attempting to bring back the idea of paid content for online newspapers. Despite a history of failure for such attempts Brill sounded confident he could make such a model work:

”You're asking me what makes me think people will buy good journalism online. The answer to that is what made everybody think 10 years ago that it had to be free. I think if enough publications take the steps to declare that it's worth something, then the public will support that. The challenge is that it has to be simple. I have three kids who used to steal music. They don't anymore because Steve Jobs figured out a way to make it relatively inexpensive, but more importantly to make it simple and kinda cool.”

Unfortunately experience continues to show that people aren't willing to pony up for online news:

InDenverTimes.com is currently free, but the plan was to have gated premium content starting next month for a $5/month subscription. The project has entrepreneurial backing and articles from journalists who used to work for the print-focused Rocky Mountain News, which closed last month. However, a lack of paying subscribers and low online ad rates means that the venture might have to scale back its ambitions."

I'm thinking Brill might want to rethink his model. I'm no more willing to pay for content from the NY Times than I am for a whine enema (That's where someone puts a firehose in your butt turns it on full blast and listens to the whining sound) and I am sure I'm not alone in this.