Hi!
I recently read an interesting article called
"The Year of the paywall." The article is about how newspapers
increasingly are going towards Internet-based newspapers. The paper magazine newspaper
can contain much more ads than an internet- based paper. And with today's
development of an internet-based society has made that the same amount of ads
is not going to get into an internet-based paper compared to a traditional
paper magazine. Therefore the internet papers are forced to find new ways to finance
the paper and its company. Market is tough and big companies like Facebook and
Google is driving prices sharply low among Internet advertising companies. The papers have to create some kind of a
paywall that force the consumers to pay to get access to the paper, just as a like
a subscription.
Services that I use today where there is a
paywall and you have to pay to get access are Netflix and Spotify. When I
started using Spotify, I did not have pay anything at all but I had to listen to
commercials. However Spotify changed their policy after a while and I needed to
pay 99 SEK to use their service, but I didn’t ness to listen to any commercials.
So I pretty much could say that I paid 99 SEK per month to avoid the advertising,
which I afterwards fund very nice.
I remember for two years ago read an internet
article about KBAB in local Karlstad newspaper. Then a half year later when I tried
to find a link to the article to show a friend I found out that I couldn’t read
the article anymore because I didn’t have a subscription of the paper.
Today's society is evolving and people are eager
to pay to avoid advertising. E.g. I personally use some apps installed in my
browser to avoid advertising. A firm that provides a service will always try to
maximize profits and will create paywalls if it is more profitable.
The market for services without advertising is
tough. I remember when Netflix was introduced on the Swedish market. The only
comparable competitor on the market was Viaplay, who took 99 SEK per month for
their service. But when Netflix introduced and offer their services for 79 SEK
per month and Viaplay followed with the price reduction immediately.
I really wonder advertising of tomorrow will
look like. My opinion is that people are willing to pay to avoid advertising
and that companies are aware of it. The companies design their services so that
the consumers avoid ads and in the same time create a paywall to fund the company.
