I've been following the discussion about the market for paid content in the wake of Rupert Mudoch's comments about charging for online content. A post today by Chris Crum at WebProNews caught my attention and challenged my assumptions.
"80% of Consumers Would Not Pay for Content," says the headline on the article, which reports on a post by search expert Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land.
"What about the 20 percent who would pay for content?" I thought? "Isn't that a big-enough market?"
It turns out there are four models for delivering paid content: (1) content that is not paid (i.e., it's free content); (2) first-click-free content; (3) subscription content; and (4) content paid after a preview. Each of the last three paid models seems to made sense to me in one setting or another. And then there's the issue of the circumstances and predilections of users toward paid content. Google and Forrester are measuring all this.
I'm not chomping at the bit for paid content. But I think it's foolish to dismiss it when a large minority seems willing to consider paying for the right stuff.
Post-Publishing Update: See also this post reporting on Forrester's findings on pricing content, especially news content.
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