There’s that “should” word again.

Let’s try a different tack. Suppose that someone else is willing to do the relevant work for $X.

Why “should” I pay you $Y, where Y > X? Does the answer to that question depend on the value of X?

If you’re trying to sell something that someone else is willing to give away for free….

You can sell unique for what it is worth. If there are other suppliers, you won’t get more than they do.

In an earlier comment I asked what’s going to give — and then later in the day I was reminded of the answer to that question — at least at the moment: the American Society of Newspaper Editors reports that nearly 6,000 newsroom jobs were lost in 2008, a record. Some of these people are trying new things — in Seattle and Denver, for instance. Let’s hope some of these ventures work.

I am not sure how it smells, but I know it’s pretty cheap. Anyone with a spare $5K can index 4000 news websites. Again: just 4000 sites. OK, make it $100K to match Google’s quality: speed, updates etc. Now when someone chooses 1) go after a portion of Google wealth instead of 2) create Their Own News and get 100% of wealth embedded in the “quality journalism” – what does it say re where this persons actually think the wealth is.

None of those folks aggregate good, unique, valuable. They aggregate commodity news.

Here’s a simple test for whether your producing something unique and valuable – if you stop, someone comes to you with a checkbook and asks “how much”.

Huffpost won’t, because they have plenty of suppliers; they don’t do unique.

Stop worrying about how someone else pays their bills. If they’re willing to give away content for free, you can’t charge for equivalent content. It doesn’t matter how they manage to stay in biz, or even if they can. As long as they’re charging less than you want to get, you’re not going to get what you want.

Unique and valuable means that you don’t have to worry about what someone else will charge because there is no one else. You only have to worry about how much your readers are willing to pay, ie valuable. (And yes, some aggregators may be willing to pay for unique and valuable even though they won’t pay for commodity.)

If I write the next Great American Novel, create the best Word Processor Deluxe ever, or am providing a developer’s toolkit to an as-yet-unreleased software platform, it makes sense that I would want to control access. In these cases, a pay- or $0-subscription-required wall makes some sense.

In cases where you are just presenting the information, it makes less sense. This is particularly true if you are presenting the information in a matter-of-fact manner, without additional editorial content.

Guardian wants free money from Google

UK consumers willing to block ads for free content

For some reason I’m not convinced.

For example, back when MSOOXML was going through ISO, my primary sources for information about what was happening weren’t the sites that report on such things. I was following blogs of attendees who were discussing what they’d been involved in, and going to the official sites to read the published documents. I didn’t need reporters just to provide me with a summary, and I sure wouldn’t pay a reporter to give me what I can get directly from the source. And that source isn’t in the business of publishing news. Their blogs aren’t sources of income, nor businesses, they’re a personal discussion of what these people are doing every day. They’re essentially a hobby. I think the rules have changed, and the problem reporters and news sites are facing is that they’re trying to play by a set of rules that no longer apply.

An acquaintance of mine (google for “stompbox” for one of his numerous projects) commented on something similar. He titled his post “But they can’t own tool! Ogg is only one to own tool!” and he was discussing businesses that were based around providing access to equipment (CNC milling machines, high-resolution large-format color-calibrated printers, laser cutting/etching rigs) that was too expensive given the amount of use they’d get out of it for individuals or even an individual business to own outright. These businesses are having a real hard time surviving as prices come down to where the businesses who need access to the equipment, and even hobbyists, can afford to get good-quality units themselves. The hobbyists especially are a threat, since the hobbyist can offer the exact same access and since they aren’t running it as a for-profit business can offer that access for costs instead of maximizing their profit.

OK, maybe the Google remark was off the cuff. Sure, Google’s search is a wonderful thing. I use it all the time. I guess what I was talking about was more the “aggregators”: Google News, HuffPost, etc. And the comment was based on my personal feeling that I could never feel good about myself making money that way. I know, I know, I’m just helping people find the information they want, collecting some money along the way from advertisers. What’s the harm? It’s just all based on the fact that other organizations are paying for that information to be gathered and presented. It doesn’t feel entirely fair. Yeah, I’m being a sap. This is why I’m not an entrepreneur, why I’ll never make a bundle of money. People who fuss too much over whether something is completely fair aren’t the kind of people who start the next big thing. So you called me on that, Andy. Fine. I won’t argue it too far right now. The point I really wanted to make here was that “free news” is not free. It’s subsidized. Everybody knows this. People are used to not paying, but the true cost of that information is hidden from them. And maybe you can extend that to say that any money Google makes on Google News is subsidized as well. How long do you think this can be sustained? Something has to give. I don’t know what will give. I don’t know how the customers will react when it does.

“It’s only with experience that one can truly learn.” I certainly agree. Which is why I get frustrated when you savage ideas you don’t like before they even get started. Surely we all benefit from the successes and failures of experimentation, whether we like the ideas or not.

As you say, you’re entitled to your opinion. But you have a loud voice in this discussion. If you elected to be skeptically supportive instead of savagely dismissive, I can’t help but think it would encourage innovation.

Alternatively we can settle for reading the bigoted Obama – worshipping dross on Huff Post or the bigoted Obama hating dross on World Net Daily.

I guess what I’m saying is objectivity costs.

How well does telling your customers what they should do work?

> What Google Does just smells wrong.

Google tells readers where to find information.

Google means that every source for the same information is in competition. Is that wrong?

Do you want to argue that one can’t make money on-line with good, unique, and valuable or that it’s impossible to do good, unique, and valuable?

I ask because none of the “old guard” is addressing good, unique, and valuable. Instead, they’re complaining that they can’t make enough money from commodity news.

You’re right — paidContent is the flagship of ContentNext Media and one of its four news sites. ContentNext produces reports (Lauren Rich Fine is our research director) and holds events, including conferences. We’ve been ad/sponsor supported since soon after Rafat started paidContent as a blog. We are a hybrid but to my thinking it’s all paid content — usually the difference is whether the advertiser or the reader pays. Our particular mix is the same as it was before we were acquired by Guardian News & Media last summer.