Door: Madalina

Madalina — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 01:24:04 +0000

I have respected a lot of the itofrmanion you have brought to the discussion regarding the future of newspapers. However, you are kicking the wrong dog here. And it is because you disagree with Jarvis’ position that news should be free.Newspapers are just as FREE as Jarvis to charge for their content. The question isn’t whether they can, but whether they should. You as well as many others know newspapers have charged for their online content in the past.Whether Jarvis should be charging for his book now may have a relationship to the argument about newspapers, but it isn’t what you may want to hear. If nobody wants to pay for the Jarvis content, then charging for it won’t work in the long run. The publisher will decide they made a big mistake, he won’t make much money, and there won’t be follow up book deals. Same goes for newspapers: if nobody wants to pay for their content then they will learn a difficult and likely final lesson.Here is my advice (and I don’t have a book deal): Newspapers should form their little group, fix a price for their content, see if they can hold the cabal together long enough for its effects to kick in, and then we will all see what happens.Just my two cents: I’m really tired of this discussion. If newspapers have the balls to do this, it’s time to pull them out and lay them on the table. At this point it may only take a year or so to find out if they walk away with a business model or without their balls (or the pants they walked in with).Maybe Jarvis is full of crap. On the surface it seems like he has little to lose and much to gain by staking out his position. Newspapers have everything to lose if they are wrong in a gambit that would have them trying to sustain their business by shutting off the internet to all but paying customers. So good luck to them if they are willing to take that gamble.By the way: I currently work for a newspaper company and have been in the business for nearly 30 years. I literally have everything to lose by what newspaper companies decide to do for their future. But I am willing to gamble my future just to have everyone shut up about this topic. I say newspapers should do it and see what happens. They win, you can tell Jarvis to shut up forever. He proves to be right, I would love to never hear about any of this again.

Reacties op: J•lab’s Summer of Blog #23: Jeff Jarvis’ Buzzmachine

Door: Madalina