Sunday, October 30, 2016

News aggregators could set up per article charge system for paid content. My suggested revenue model for journalism.

I've noticed that more and more quality content on the internet, such as newspaper articles, are behind paywalls. Who's is likely to subscribe to such a large number of different publications just so an occasional link they find on Facebook or Yahoo works?

I got to thinking that large sites, like Facebook and Yahoo, could provide a subscription system where people would buy a supply of tokens that work on a whole bunch of participating media. Then, instead of having to subscribe to a hundred, or so, of different publications that one might only click on occasionally, the tokens would be available to pay for individual articles.

I've seen a few sites that use tokens to access participating sites, but it seems like a rare practice. This system could help with the problem of how can journalism be compensated in the internet age. Sites like Facebook and Yahoo are in good positions to provide this as they are, what could be called, multi site aggregators.

On another note, with more and more content disappearing behind paywalls, I appreciate the vast amount of free content and podcasts available from various radio stations, including NPR. Radio offers so much for free that I am spoiled.

No comments: