"Premium" service won't work (was: Question for Clay and others)

[Russell Turpin]

Andy Armstrong asks:
>Is that because you don't want cost to be a factor in whether you choose to 
>read something or not, or because you just don't want the hassle of 
>thinking about it?

It's because I don't want the hassle of thinking about it,
especially on a page-by-page basis. How do I know whether
I should pay a nickel or a dime for a page? Is that high
or low? How many paid pages do I read a month? I don't
know the answers to these questions, and more, I don't
want to know. That's stuff I would just as soon not worry
about. An aggregator ought to be able to segment content
consumers such that (a) it's easy for people to identify
their segment, (b) everyone in the segment pays a fixed
price, and (c) having done this, everyone in that segment
very rarely encounters a web page outside their subscribed
scope. In this model, the aggregator determines the
segmentation and pricing model, bargains with publishers,
and tracks usage to determine publisher subscription
revenue.

Admittedly, this is more directed to answering "what would
it take to entice me to pay for Web content" than "what
is a practical business model in today's environment." The
market does not always provide what I want. I'll be sorry
if Salon goes under. But not enough to hassle with
subscribing to *one* Web publication.

Russell

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com