Freelance Unbound

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Even casual readers of Freelance Unbound will know I’m pretty sceptical that the news media will find it easy to make a go of charging for online access to plain old news. But, you know, I could be wrong.
A case in point is the Boston Globe, which has announced it will definitely, absolutely, start doing this soon.
Although, according to the report from Editor and Publisher:

Neither the specifics of the plan nor a potential date to begin charging have been officially announced.

Hmm. Well, we’ll wait and see I guess.
Don’t get me wrong – I’d be delighted for the Globe if the plan works. And it seems from the noises being made by publishers that newspapers with their back against the wall see no other option. So we may well see this experiment happening.
And maybe once some papers take the plunge, others will rush to copy them. Although this flies in the face of most commercial experience, which will normally see companies sitting back to watch as higher prices kill off a competitor rather than happily joining in with the strategy.
[HT: Annette Novak]

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