Paid content: the newspaper industry’s suicide pact

Dan Conover says the newspaper publishers' campaign to charge readers for on-line news is a suicide pact.

He says while expecting readers to pay for the professionally created content is reasonable, attempts to force them to pay are "post-rational".

Conover points out flaws, including the fact consumers don't want to pay for news and previous attempts to make them pay have failed. But he says newspaper publishers no longer listen to reason and are determined to plough ahead with paid content.

I'd love to see publishers find a way to make on-line news profitable.  But it is a fantasy.

If Fairfax can only convince a handful of Australian business people to stump up cash to read the highly targeted and immensely useful Australian Financial Review on-line, what chance do other newspaper publishers have?

You need nerves of steel to bet against Rupert Murdoch, but this time, he and the other newspaper owners are going in the wrong direction – readers are not going to pay to read news. And they definitely will not do so while there are free alternatives.