Paywall
A paywall is a method of restricting access to content, with a purchase or a paid subscription, especially news. Beginning in the mid-2010s, newspapers started implementing paywalls on their websites as a way to increase revenue after years of decline in paid print readership and advertising revenue, partly due to the use of ad blockers. In academics, research papers are often subject to a paywall and are available via academic libraries that subscribe.
Paywalls have also been used as a way of increasing the number of print subscribers; for example, some newspapers offer access to online content plus delivery of a Sunday print edition at a lower price than online access alone. Newspaper websites such as that of The Boston Globe and The New York Times use this tactic because it increases both their online revenue and their print circulation.
History
In 1996, The Wall Street Journal set up and has continued to maintain a "hard" paywall. It continued to be widely read, acquiring over one million users by mid-2007, and 15 million visitors in March 2008.In 2010, following in the footsteps of The Wall Street Journal, The Times implemented a "hard" paywall; a decision which was controversial because, unlike The Wall Street Journal, The Times is a general news site, and it was said that rather than paying, users would seek the information without charge elsewhere. The paywall was deemed in practice to be neither a success nor a failure, having recruited 105,000 paying visitors. In contrast The Guardian resisted the use of a paywall, citing "a belief in an open Internet" and "care in the community" as its reasoning – an explanation found in its welcome article to online news readers who, blocked from The Times site following the implementation of their paywall, came to The Guardian for online news. The Guardian since experimented with other revenue-increasing ventures such as open API. Other papers, prominently The New York Times, have oscillated between the implementation and removal of various paywalls. Because online news remains a relatively new medium, it has been suggested that experimentation is key to maintaining revenue while keeping online news consumers satisfied.
Some implementations of paywalls proved unsuccessful, and have been removed. Experts who are skeptical of the paywall model include Arianna Huffington, who declared "the paywall is history" in a 2009 article in The Guardian. In 2010, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales reportedly called The Times's paywall "a foolish experiment." One major concern was that, with content so widely available, potential subscribers would turn to free sources for their news. The adverse effects of earlier implementations included decline in traffic and poor search engine optimization.
Paywalls have become controversial, with partisans arguing over the effectiveness of paywalls in generating revenue and their effect on media in general. Critics of paywalls include many businesspeople, academics such as media professor Jay Rosen, and journalists such as Howard Owens and media analyst Matthew Ingram of GigaOm. Those who see potential in paywalls include investor Warren Buffett, former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Some have changed their opinions of paywalls. Felix Salmon of Reuters was initially an outspoken skeptic of paywalls, but later expressed the opinion that they could be effective. A NYU media theorist, Clay Shirky, was initially a skeptic of paywalls, but in May 2012 wrote, " should turn to their most loyal readers for income, via a digital subscription service of the sort the has implemented."
Types
Three high level models of paywall have emerged: hard paywalls that allow no free content and prompt the user straight away to pay in order to read, listen or watch the content, soft paywalls that allow some free content, such as an abstract or summary, and metered paywalls that allow a set number of free articles that a reader can access over a specific period of time, allowing more flexibility in what users can view without subscribing."Hard" paywalls
The "hard" paywall, as used by The Times, requires paid subscription before any of their online content can be accessed. A paywall of this design is considered the riskiest option for the content provider. It is estimated that a website will lose 90% of its online audience and ad revenue only to gain it back through its ability to produce online content appealing enough to attract subscribers. News sites with "hard" paywalls can succeed if they:- Provide added value to their content
- Target a niche audience
- Already dominate their own market
"Soft" paywalls
The "soft" paywall is best embodied by the metered model. The metered paywall allows users to view a specific number of articles before requiring paid subscription. In contrast to sites allowing access to select content outside the paywall, the metered paywall allows access to any article as long as the user has not surpassed the set limit. The Financial Times allows users to access 10 articles before becoming paid subscribers. The New York Times controversially implemented a metered paywall in March 2011 which let users view 20 free articles a month before paid subscription and in April 2012 they reduced the number of free articles per month to 10. Their metered paywall has been defined as not only soft, but "porous", because it also allows access to any link posted on a social media site, and up to 25 free articles a day if accessed through a search engine.The model is designed to allow the paper to "retain traffic from light users", which in turn allows the paper to keep their number of visitors high, while receiving circulation revenue from the site's heavy users. Using this model The New York Times garnered 224,000 subscribers in the first three months. While many proclaimed their paywall a success after it reported a profit in the third quarter of 2011, Anne Nelson of MediaShift called the profit increase "ephemeral" and "largely based on a combination of cutbacks and the sale of assets."
Google Search previously enforced a policy known as "First Click Free", whereby paywalled news websites were required to have a metered paywall for a minimum number of articles per-day that could be accessed via results on Google Search or Google News. The site could still paywall other articles that were accessible via the page. This encouraged publications to allow their articles to be indexed by Google's web crawler, thus enhancing their prominence on Google Search and Google News. Sites that opted out of First Click Free were demoted in Google's rankings. Google discontinued the policy in 2017, stating that it provides additional tools for helping publications integrate subscriptions into its platforms.
Combination
The "freemium" paywall strategy is a softer type of paywall that provides free access to basic content, but requires payments for premium content. Such a strategy has been said to lead to "the creation of two categories: cheap fodder available for free, and more 'noble' content." This type of separation brings into question the egalitarianism of the online news medium. According to political and media theorist Robert A Hackett, "the commercial press of the 1800s, the modern world's first mass medium, was born with a profound democratic promise: to present information without fear or favour, to make it accessible to everyone, and to foster public rationality based on equal access to relevant facts.".The Boston Globe implemented a version of this strategy in September 2011 by launching a second website, BostonGlobe.com, to solely offer content from the paper behind a hard paywall, aside from most sports content, which was kept open to compete against other local sports websites. The former Boston Globe website, Boston.com, was relaunched with a larger focus on community news, sports, and lifestyle content, as well as selected Boston Globe content. The paper's editor Martin Baron described the two services as "two different sites for two different kinds of reader – some understand journalism needs to be funded and paid for. Other people just won't pay. We have a site for them." By March 2014 the site had over 60,000 digital subscribers; at that time, the Globe announced that it would replace the hard paywall with a metered system allowing users to read 10 articles without charge in any 30-day period. The Boston Globe editor Brian McGrory believed that an ability to sample the site's premium content would encourage more people to subscribe to the service. At the same time, McGrory also announced plans to give Boston.com a more distinct editorial focus, with a "sharper voice that better captures the sensibilities of Boston", while migrating other content by Globe writers, such as blogs from Boston.com to the paper's website, but keeping them freely available.
Cookie paywall
"Cookie paywalls" are cookie banners that require the user to either pay to access the content, or accept targeted advertising and third-party cookies to access it for free. The compatibility of this technique with data protection laws like the General Data Protection Regulation is controversial, and multiple data protection agencies have established different guidelines.In countries like Italy, Austria, France and Denmark, it is lawful as long as the website provides the user with the option of accessing equivalent content or services without giving their consent to the storage and use of cookies or other tracking tools, and the subscription to the site has a modest and fair cost so that it does not constrain the user’s free choice.