This weekend, the Globe and Mail announced that it was freeing its columnists from the tyranny of the online subscriber wall. Get out of the harbour, Jeffrey Simpson; it’s time to go out where the big ships float, Margaret Wente.
By abandoning its Insider subscription program—or “retiring,” if you care to share Edward Greenspon’s euphemism—the Globe has admitted that charging for opinion on the Internet doesn’t work.
Well, hello. The team of crack market researchers finally reported back, did it?
Last September, The New York Times abandoned its own attempt to charge readers for access to its columnists. Here’s my question: how do we explain the fact that, for the next 255 days, the Globe persisted in the belief that people would pay to read Margaret Wente when Maureen Dowd could be read for free.
The Globe’s decision begs all kinds of other, serious questions, such as: Is the revenue squeeze at Canadian newspapers going to hit the same apocalyptic proportions as in the United States? Are Canadians as ready to embrace online news as Americans? Why are there so few quality, online-only Canadian publications?
Search me. But now that the country’s largest paper has freed itself from the delusion of charging for content, maybe it can turn its attention to producing the same killer applications that make today’s nytimes.com so good. If not, the Globe should start hiring people who can. Because here’s the rub, Mr. Greenspon: Free isn’t good enough anymore. I can get free anywhere. I want to be captivated.
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