David Simon, creator of The Wire and a former journalist, on monetizing newspapers... but it applies across the board. He says to charge for online content:
Content matters. And you must find a way, in the brave new world of digitization, to make people pay for that content. If you do this, you still have a product and there is still an industry, a calling, and a career known as professional journalism. If you do not find a way to make people pay for your product, then you are—if you choose to remain in this line of work—delusional.
There are few people better qualified to make this comment than Simon. Working within TV's HBO system -- in which the user pays for the content -- Simon created what a great many people agree is the greatest television series ever, The Wire. A user-pays model generates the best content.
On the other hand, there's the advertiser-pays model, which is how network television operates. Yeah, you get some good stuff, but there's a whole lot of crap.
Ultimately, I think many web creators are going to rely on both ad revenues and user-fees, but unless users get in there and pay part of the freight, they are not going to get the product they want.
