http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003939889

As an MBA student, I inquired about a WSJ student subscription. I was told that if I wanted it, I could get the print newspaper *for free* with an online subscription. Furthermore, it was cheaper to get this online subscription (with free Journal) than to simply get a print subscription. So why not? I found myself reading the print WSJ at the kitchen table as much as at my laptop.

The interesting thing is that the pricing was fully aligned to the value perception. Online was valuable. Print was not, or much less so (for students at least).

Acting as a cartel, as you’re suggesting may have worked at some point in the past, but as Howard Owens pointed out earlier today on Twitter, a cartel “won’t help San Diego Union-Tribune, Watertown Times, Batavia Daily News, (or) any other local paper with local competition.”

In other words, if my local paper goes paid tomorrow, there are at least four television stations with web sites that would be happy to take its turn-away traffic.

Perhaps if local papers also withdrew from the AP, this could dry up the sources of content for local competitors (largely rewrites of paper stories moved on the wire), but even that – as radical a move as it is – would not patch all the holes.

I wonder, though, if there’s an opportunity to tap into that person you mention above who wants to support a paper, but has no real outlet. Would a semi-annual membership drive in the NPR model help to supplement more traditional ad revenues?

These isolated efforts to charge for content haven’t worked because they have been, well, isolated – when there is a free alternative, people will flock to it.

But in a war of attrition, there are no winners. The advertising-supported model has had enough time to develop, and I think it’s clear that one thing online consumers like even less than paying for content is wasting time when being forced to sit through a video ad. That fact, combined with the plethora of advertising and marketing options now available in this country means that it is unlikely online sites will enjoy the premium advertising payments like newspapers in the good old days, making it nearly impossible for online sites alone to support these news outlets without a significant and further reduction in content.

Obviously there are antitrust implications, but the industry would be better off if they collectively moved (at or near the same time) to an online subscription model with micropayments for individual stories, etc.

The situation is sadly ironic. Take a fan of the New York Times who reads the content online. This person wants to support the continued existence of the Times, but the only option that adds real value to the company is a paid print subscriber. A single web visitor adds marginal utility to the company compared to a single print subscriber. So to support the Times’ continued existence, one might subscribe to the paper edition even if she only reads the content online.

Now, I ask, where is the sense in this model?