A company producing an incredibly important product charges its users for that product? What?! Blasphemy!

Sure, the Internet is full of information. Most of it is free. Some of it is worthwhile. A very small fraction of it is of professional quality and full of intellectual insights. So while it’s easy to condemn the New York Times for instituting a pay wall, it’s important to put the situation in the right perspective: The NYT is a company producing a product to sell to consumers, and this product is essential for people to make decisions and be informed. Information is a product. In every other industry, you have to pay for products; heck, a lot of us will pay more for better products. So, why all the brouhaha about a [hopefully] small fee for a quality product? Are we entitled to information?

The concept of free flowing information is Google’s idea of a utopia; the search behemoth promotes the content, yet Google is raking in the profits while newspapers aren’t able to keep up with it. It isn’t Google’s fault that the newspapers aren’t able to make money from this, but it leaves newspapers with tough decisions. How can they make money from their product that, compared to the rest of the market, is worth nothing? So, insert the New York Times in 2011…

There has been a lot of mixed opinions on this decision to institute a metered model. It’s not a revolutionary answer to problems with monetizing their Web site, but I think it’s a step in the right direction for the newspaper. After all, it’s the largest newspaper Web site out there with more than 18 million different people visiting the site in a month. I’m sure the pay wall will have a negative impact on these numbers, but as other newspaper Web sites begin charging for content (and they will), people will see the value of the product. The company still has a long way to go in order to create a sustainable business model in this digital era, but I’m with them for now.

News is all over the place, but relevant, balanced and intelligent news reporting is hard to come by these days. Newsrooms are shrinking and along with it, the quality of journalism is, too. I’m willing to spare a few extra dollars to support quality journalism. In a democratic country, we should be jumping at the chance to support those who fuel democracy.

Will you pay for the New York Times? How about other online content? Why or why not?

Photo by paalia on Flickr.