Micropayments: The Future of Newspapers?

In Walter Isaacson’s article entitled, “How to Save Your Newspaper,” he discusses the way to charge people for the newspaper articles they read online. This has been done before by websites such as the Los Angeles Times, and didn’t work, so they started letting readers view all their content for free. Isaacson has a problem with this, so he brought up a solution: micropayments. A micropayment is simply a system that easily allows someone to charge a small amount of money for something.

Isaacson acknowledges in his article that the Internet is filled with failed micropayment companies, and he says that a lot has been written about how these micropayments won’t work because of “bad tech or mental transaction costs.” He believes that these micropayments can and will work if instituted. One point he brings up is Steve Jobs getting music buyers to pay 99 cents for a song on Itunes. Moreover, the author states that if Jobs can get people to pay for music, newspapers can get people to pay for newspapers, as long as it is a process that could be done simply.

Under the system, Isaacson proposes that a newspaper could charge a measly amount such as a nickel or a dime for the day’s paper or $2 for a month’s worth of web access. Charging a small amount, such as two dollars, for a whole month might seem like a small amount to the general public, and at the same time would give newspapers a chance to make some money off of their internet content.

Now, the main point and the best point that Isaacson makes, which I will touch on more later, is the point that the content of Journalism would improve if people had to pay for it. Isaacson says that people who produce “really neat stuff” should get paid for it….but more importantly, “charging for content forces discipline on journalists: they must produce things that people actually value.”

After reading Isaacson’s article, a counterpoint was put out by Michael Kinsley. His article entitled, “You can’t sell news by the slice,” discusses how you can’t save newspapers by charging people to read their news online. He goes on to discuss how the old newspaper is long gone and that newspapers will survive, but most likely it will be a few major ones that take all of the readers. He states that the typical newspaper is “an anachronism,” going on to call it to an artifact.

The other major point that Kinsley makes is about the amount of money newspapers would make by charging people to read newspapers online instead of having an actual print edition of the paper. He says that if you charged $2 a month like Isaacson proposes, then the company would make about $25 million. This makes no sense to do, since the NY Times brought in $668 million in circulation last year.

I have my own opinion on these micropayments. I am going to dance on the fence because I agree with both points. I agree with Isaacson that this is a simple plan and would bring in revenue that the newspaper isn’t currently bringing in. However, I agree with Kinsley on the point about how much newspapers bring in. If a newspaper company were to sell the paper at a small price online, I would definitely keep the print edition as well, because papers cater to different age groups. Older people like to read their paper in print, while the younger generation is constantly online, so it likes to get its news online. Furthermore, if I needed to choose whether I liked the idea of micropayments, I would say that I do, because as an aspiring journalist, I believe that writers should get rewarded for their work, just like movie producers, writers, etc. deserve to make money off of DVD’s and their movies that get put online.

In Jakob Nielsen’s article entitled, “The Case for Micropayments,” he says that “users should be willing to pay, say, one cent per Web page in return for getting quality content and an optimal user experience with less intrusive ads.” Nielsen also brings up a great point when discussing the opponents have with the plan, in that users don’t want to be nickled and dimed. However, Nielsen argues that some sites aren’t having success with the micropayments because they are charging up to $1 per page. That price is obviously absurd, so a price of once cent per page is not too much to ask for.



In conclusion, micropayments have been proposed for a while and have not seemed to work the way that some wished it would, but if the newspaper business continues to decline and people continue to go online to get their news, it seems like micropayments will be the go-to option for newspapers in the near future.