Re: UKNM: Subscriptions

[Clay Shirky]

> Yes, there's lots of free content out there.

> 

> But how much is worth the bytes it's written in?


Enough to have destroyed almost every for-fee information provider out

there. Net distribution affects everybody - 1998 was the last year the

Encyclopedia Brittanica published a paper edition, and they're still

having trouble on the net. They may in the end become one of the few

for-fee services out there, alongside theStreet, the Wall Street

Journal, and a handful of others, but the vast majority of business

models built on the idea that people will happily pay for content will

fail.


> If you spend any time searching the Web for information, you realise

> how almost any decent information either isn't there or isn't free

> (or isn't easily found).


I have had quite the opposite experience, but then I'm a Yank, so a

lot more of our businesses and media outlets are publishing full text

on the Web these days.


> But information isn't a generic product. You pay for quality

> information. We've always done this, and although the Internet

> negates a lot of information inaccessibilty (due to geography), you

> still consume paid-for information, whether on dead wood or in bits

> and bytes.

> 

> Content is still the killer app of the Web, and if people want

> content, they'll pay for content.


I thknk you are dead wrong about this, having lived through the failed

for-fee models in the states, e.g the New York Times Euro-edition,

Slate, gaming networks, AOL's hourly pricing, etc. 


Lets make it a bet - I will bet that by Christmas 1999, there is a

smaller proportion of for-fee information on the net than there is

now. Lets call it dinner anywhere in London, with the proportion is to

be adjudicated by the list.


-clay 

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