When I was a graduate student back at the University of Texas, there was a kerfuffle about the local student newspaper wanting to tack on a subscription fee to student fees. Austin at that time was more of a quality-of-life college town with the economy largely driven by college student businesses. These businesses were happy to pay the ads that fully sustained the paper's operating expenses. Why then pay extra for a free paper? The newspaper thought the fact that it was free devalued the service they were providing, that the students would appreciate them more if they were more personally vested in the paper. I don't think that they succeeded, at least while I was there.
I also have an interest since the little money I made during my high school years was running an afternoon/Sunday morning paper route, about 90 customers, mostly enlisted families and airman barracks at the Air Force base. I cleared maybe $1/day biking miles under a broiling south Texas sun. I half-apologized one day to a customer; the newspaper was bulkier than usual, stuffed with ad inserts. I told her "Not a lot of news: just ads." And she smiled and said, "We buy it for the ads."
I think during my salad days I loved newspapers, including the Gray Lady (New York Times). Local news would bore me--the latest high profile crimes, accidents, etc. I eventually got hooked on the Wall Street Journal; I'm not sure when it started, maybe seeing copies in the waiting rooms for a business appointment or job interview. It wasn't the daily stock market results but compelling news stories and editorials. There was a time I had subscribed for what turned out to be a teaser rate for print and/or digital; to be honest, I did so much road warrior work at the time, the papers would pile up unread and then a regular, much higher rate kicked in, leading to a quick cancellation.
When the Wall Street Journal started its paywall (I had to Google to verify the cost), it was $49 a year (with discounts to print subscribers). I quickly signed up; it was a bargain compared to print newspaper subscriptions. But for whatever reason, the subscription price jumped to a double or more, and I wasn't using it enough to justify the higher cost. I think if they shifted to more of a metered model of micropayments, it would make more sense (like rechargeable store or phone minute cards).
So if you don't know, typically a paywall might offer a blurb on a news story or whatever and then require you to log in or subscribe to get access to the rest of the story. Now given the fact I can usually search for a substitute story at no cost, this really only has an appeal if WSJ has an exclusive story.
But what really annoyed me was when WSJ started including op-eds in its paywall. I don't know of anybody else doing that. I don't mind ad-supported op-eds, but I'm not about to pay for the privilege of promoting WSJ content on my free political blog. I'm not sure when I became first aware of it; it may have been when George Mason economist Donald Boudreaux linked to one of his published opinions there. Whether my and/or other complaints, Boudreaux now tends to warn readers about paywalls; in some cases, authors would provide workarounds, like a draft copy on a personal website, although WSJ probably isn't happy with authors doing that and I've seen less of it lately.
Some news portals allow you a monthly quota of free views, e.g., WashPo recently messaged I had exhausted my quota when I nibbled on the clickbait on the side (a hiker in Maine who got lost off the trail and had died). But when I get dinged for looking at a Karl Rove or Peggy Noonan rant making news at WSJ, it's annoying.
There's one workaround (at the time of this post) that seems to work. WSJ had a piece trending on Twitter about GOP IL Gov. Rauner facing a supermajority Dem legislature in an epic budget battle; state unions reject Rauner's wage freeze and merit pay proposals, and the legislature is trying to give the unions an arbitration workaround to Rauner. (In addition, they want to hike taxes without any concessions on spending, pensions, etc.) I follow Illinois Policy Institute and already knew the story but I was interested to see any new twist or late developments. And I was stopped by the paywall.
What worked in this case was to copy the headline and do a Google search in a separate window. Near the top of the search page you should see an indented webpage link leading to the full webpage. Now WSJ seems to know you're a visitor and has a link at the top of the page for the latest teaser subscription rate plus maybe a pop-up ad to click out of. I dislike games, though. I almost never cite WSJ content on my blog anymore.
When I was a professor, textbook publishers often sent me complimentary copies (in fact, I got paid a nominal amount to review a few). Now granted my blogs and Twitter accounts don't attract thousands of followers or viewers that might interest vendors into providing complimentary or professional discounted paywall subscriptions, but it might motivate me into promoting their content more than the status quo.
