Congratulations, publishers. We’ve trained the unwashed masses on the Internet quite well. They are convinced that it’s their God-given, constitutional right to get free access to all the analysis and reporting we produce at great expense. A growing number of people are offended at the idea that publishers should be compensated for their work.
Sensible people realize that the ads they see in a magazine or on a web page pay for the content. Putting up with those ads is the price the reader pays for getting free stuff online.
But the world is not populated by sensible people. The way they see it, it’s natural and ordinary and right for the information to be free, and publishers are money-grubbing bastards for littering the public’s online safe spaces with crude things like advertising.
Well … what did you expect? This is one more consequence of the awful, bad, horrible decision publishers made when they chose to put their valuable work online “for free” — that is, ad supported.
Someone is going to say, “But Krehbiel, you’re writing all this stuff for free.”
Yes, and that’s precisely the point. There should be a distinction between the free stuff — some guy like me jawing about whatever — and real journalism, real research. real data, real analysis.
When you publish your work for free you’re telling the world that it’s no better than a blog.
Recently I have been on the receiving end of some terribly nasty complaints by readers about the paywall policy where I work. We’ve set a strict standard. Paying subscribers can use an ad blocker, others can’t. If they go elsewhere, that’s okay with us because we’re not getting any revenue from them anyway.
That policy is a step in the right direction, but you wouldn’t believe the rage it generates from the snowflakes who think they have a right to read for free all the material we pay a lot of money to produce. It’s pretty amazing.
Publishers are now in the awkward situation of trying to put the genie back in the bottle — or, perhaps, taking the candy back from the baby — and trying to re-establish the idea that quality content isn’t free.