#PaywallHell

Reality: very few people can afford to subscribe at the rates offered when the reality of those various subs hits

WaPo, $100 NYT, $52 LAT $104 BGlobe $360 DallasMN $355 CTrib $355

$1326/year, or $100/month
What is needed is a "universal access subscription"

1/

For fair #DigitalAccess there need be a way to take a subscription across the platforms

Buy the universal pass and every month the tally is locked in and revenues split according to unique visits to articles over a month

It is easy to implement, but too many egos to work

2/

The next question is the cost of such a pass

Marketing 501 says if you set a reasonable price, you will make customers happier

If you can make more happy customers, they will stay longer and pass the word about the real value

/3

When manufacturing, you add the COG and Facility and so on to get a raw cost to manufacture

Then there is the unit cost, which will typically diminish a bit as more units are produced.

Selling information, not a tangible good, has one price to manufacture

/4

Because the manufacturing cost is basically fixed, and the incremental cost of distribution is so low, each additional subscriber adds more to the bottom line.

If there are enough subscribers at an affordable rate, and more profits are thus realized...

/5

The product can be enhanced

Better coverage of stories because Journos can spend more time

More coverage because more Journos can be hired

Better status w better Journos

/6

It will not happen overnight

But if the publishers want to survive, they will need to be less cutthroat

The consuming public and publishers must realize realize that journalism of the future will have to become more of a symbiotic existence

Think on it

>>end<<

7/