In what is certainly a shame, the free nature of the Wall Street Journal iPhone and BlackBerry app is about to become a little less free. Starting “soon”, users of said mobile apps will have to begin paying up $2/week, according to Rupert Murdoch as he spoke at a Goldman Sachs conference. Even worse, subscribers of the actual news paper who shell out over $100+/year will also have to pay albeit a slightly lower fee of $1/week. Well, so much for that stint on my iPhone. Looks like the WSJ app is going bye-bye. While $2 is a paltry amount to complain about, the fact that the news is everywhere and can be had for far less means I will certainly seek out those other channels.
Even worse though is the fact that he “predicts”, (read: it’s coming) that Hulu, owned by NBC and partnered with Murdoch’s News Corp., will soon also adopt a paid structure. Whether it’s pay-per-view or a subscription based model is still up in the air as either one or both options could become available means the currently amazing Hulu, will become another resource of which I avoid — a great resource in the internet age destroyed by another big corporation looking to overcharge, restrict access and innovation, etc. etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the capitalist mindset and economy as well as the right to be paid for your work, but the method that Murdoch, News Corp., and so many others are going about it is all wrong. When will they understand the internet is a completely different animal from print/physical media and because, can’t have the same rules and regulations applied. It won’t work. But I guess instead of coming up with a new business model why not just slap some dollar signs on it and call it a day huh?
**In case they need a hint: Google “Internet Manifesto” (or look on the sidebar to the right).**
That certainly puts a damper on my day. You feeling it too?
Source: Gizmodo, Paid Content
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