Micropayments: Pros and Cons (Back to the Future)

An argument that seemed settled years ago – Will people pay by the story for online news? – popped up again recently as a potential solution to the current business struggles of newspapers and magazines. Now, the same as then, I don’t believe that micropayments, or a few cents for each story or video, is the answer, but we shouldn’t rule out all methods of paying for online news and information. Here’s a roundup of the arguments for and against:

FOR

• Alan Mutter: Mission possible? Charging for web content and How to charge for content. Theoretically.
• David Carr: Let’s Invent an iTunes for News
• Walter Isaacson: How to Save Your Newspaper
• Nicholas Carr: The writing is on the paywall

AGAINST

• Clay Shirky: Why Small Payments Won’t Save Publishers
• Michael Kinsley: You Can’t Sell News by the Slice

Photo by Infrogmation