Paywalls are Killing Democracy
I’ve gotten myself in the habit of opening an incognito browser before checking a news website. Or if I see a link to an article, I’m always sure to right click it to open in a new in private window. This isn’t because I’m ashamed of the websites I’m viewing, it’s because in this day and age it’s a necessity when reading the news.
The Unfortunate Necessity of Incognito Browsing
The reason I’m always sure to use in private browsing is because it prevents the site from recognizing that I’ve clicked on an article. Several news sites now track visits to the website on a single device and keep track of this information. They place a limit to how many articles can be viewed on a single device, and on average, it’s about three. News websites such as The Washington Post and The New York Times have browsing limits for users. And some websites are beginning to feature premium stories, which can only be viewed with a subscription.
The Problems with Subscriptions
Say you’re someone who wants to keep up with current events. Let’s say that you want to keep up with national and local news. The basic subscription to The Washington Post is $100 a year. And let’s say you also want to keep up with events in your hometown. The online cost for The Wichita Eagle, which is my hometown paper, is $156 a year.
If you’re an avid news consumer, $21 a month isn’t a ridiculous amount to pay. In fact, It’s a whole $1 less than the monthly cost of the premium versions of Spotify and Netflix.
But what if you aren’t an avid news consumer? Let’s be honest with ourselves, the majority of us just read the headline, and maybe the article title really grabs our attention, we’ll read the first few lines, or maybe even a whole paragraph. Most people are not reading entire articles. In fact, if you’ve made it this far in this article, you’re in the minority.
The Necessity of Revenue
I understand that media sites need to make revenue. They need money to pay people to make websites that they can post the articles to, and they need to pay people to write the articles. Everything costs money. So a subscription plan as a means of income isn’t absurd.
The main source of income for journalism is from ads run on sites and in papers. It’s the selling of ad space that keeps the printing presses running. Except that print media is dying, so I guess it pays to keep the servers running.
An Alternative to Paywalls
Do you remember back in 2007 when Hulu first became available? Back then, if you’ll recall, the website was free. Sure, you might have to wait a few days before seeing the most recent episode of a show, and for the shows you did watch, you had ads, but it was free. You could pay for a premium version without ads, but the version with ads was free to use.
Now, Hulu no longer operates in this way, and even a basic subscription to the program has ads, and there is no free version. But this model isn’t ridiculous. I mean, this is how Spotify still operates. There are more features and perks to having a Spotify premium account, but you can still listen to music through Spotify for free.
News sites should adopt this method. The majority of people are more than willing to sit through an ad before getting to the content they came for. I mean, just look at YouTube. It’s almost impossible to watch a video without having to sit through an ad first. Yet people still use YouTube despite the ads. As long as people are able to access the content they came for, they’re more than willing to sit through ads.
Democracy Dies in Darkness
Isn’t it ironic that The Washington Post, a news source with the slogan “Democracy dies in darkness” keeps their articles behind paywalls? In a way, they’re contributing to the so called darkness that kills the very democracy they set out to defend.
By keeping information behind a paywall, media access is becoming a sort of luxury. You can only follow current events and breaking news if you can afford to do so.
By switching to using ads before viewing articles, I wager that these sites would see a greater revenue than they currently do. If they have an option for an ad free premium, the people will no doubt pay for it. And by having an ad before the article, these sites will get additional profit from doing so. Because now, when I hit a paywall, I exit the website. They aren’t making any money off of me. But if there were only an ad I had to watch, then I would stay on the site and read more articles, thereby seeing more ads, and bringing in more revenue for these sources.
I understand the necessity of revenue to keep a media outlet afloat. But the purpose of journalism is to inform the public. Media outlets refusing to adapt their revenue streams in order to perform this duty is an egregious error. And simply put, an ethical failure.
