Vocal Voices

... are to go behind paywalls later this year, like the FT and the Times. The Telegraph will be going to let you read 20 articles or so a month for free, after that it will charge. The Sun I think will be charging full-stop. I can't find the Telegraph's rather self-congratulatory article about it today, which was on the lines of taking journalism "into the future", but this is the Guardian's reporting of it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/ma ... ne-paywall

Would you pay to read online news, or would you just devolve down to the (free) BBC and the DM?

I suppose the media has got to raise the funds to pay all those Leveson fines somehow ....

No chance - I will just go to the free sites

It is a bit of an issue for the newspapers. Sales are falling as more of us turn to the Internet for our news, so to stay in business they have to do something. I would hate to think that we (most of us) end up relying on two or three places for news.

For me it would certainly not be the BBC, which has become one of the least trusted and one-sided news outlets in the country.

No, I won't be paying. Shame about the Telegraph though, it is one of the more thoughtful websites.

Oh no! I'm not bothered about the Sun but will miss the Telegraph.

I have twelve newspapers in my favourites and browse through them every morning with my first cup of tea.
That will be two less then soon!

Unfortunately there will come a tipping point where the sales of newspapers cannot support the 'free' ad supported online versions. At that point the the owners have a tough commercial decision to make: charge for online or fold the site in the hope sales pick up.

It might only be the two today, but down the line I expect more to follow.

Honestly the era of the "free" internet had to end sometime. Google scoops the majority of the ad revenue (billions), anyway, so everyone else is looking for the fringe ad money.

Let's face it the only places you get the news for free nowadays are the radio and the handouts when you travel....

I got a mail today telling me that I could read 20 per month under my subscription. I have the same with the FT and that works for me. I can read the bulk of the headlines in Google news anyway and then find the stories on whichever news outlet I want.

I guess it's tablets which have driven this. Finally people have portable gadgets they can hold in their hand and read the news online. Ergo they're not going to buy a paper too. So paywalls.

My only surprise? That this didn't kick off a decade ago when the nascent internet had not set such free open access expectations to the broader population.

Can you ever see the DM going to a subscription basis, Suff?

Was is not the New York Times that went behind a paywall a few years back - but then scrapped it?