When does online news cost too much?

[KiwiCoromandel]

When does online news cost too much?

My answer is $155. Yesterday, when checking my bank account, I found that Dow Jones had charged $155 for a year's Wall Street Journal online subscription. I had been expecting the same $119 charge as last year, which already was borderline too high but acceptable (I had a fulltime job 12 months ago). WSJ had gone too far with its pricing. I called customer service, cancelled the account and asked for a refund. The call wasn't easily made, because of the real and sentimental value received. I do regularly read the Journal online, and I have subscribed since 1996! No longer.

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source: Joe Wilcox/BetaNews

VIDEO: Wired editor and author Chris Anderson speculates that the low cost of digital publishing may facilitate newspapers to generate sufficient revenue by charging subscriptions for premium content, thus cutting off dependency on advertisers and saving the industry.

Apparently there is such a thing as a free lunch. Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails capitalized on offering their music for free, Google lets us search, e-mail and use all kinds of free applications, and ATT will give you a cell phone gratis, if you just buy their monthly plan. These are only a fraction of the businesses that have helped to establish a full-fledged economy based on the concept of zero dollars down.

Wired's Chris Anderson explains the recent phenomenon of making lots of money by charging nothing. Is everything moving toward "free now, pay later"? What are the consequences? -

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VIDEO: Long before anyone had heard of the Internet, early home computer users could read their morning newspapers online ... sort of. Steve Newman's 1981 story was broadcast on KRON San Francisco.

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images: Fair Use/Youtube/Screengrab: ONLINE NEWS