The internationally popular news organization Reuters is making the decision to restrict all of its online publications, choosing to keep them behind a paywall instead.
While it’s rather easy to immediately start gnashing one’s teeth at such an opening line, let us zoom out and take a glance at the current landscape media and journalism is dealing with. Newspaper print journalism is slowly fading, as the general populace gets more and more reliant on online publications, articles, videos, podcasts, and so much more for their share of the news. With so many options suddenly available to everyone, typical journalistic endeavors and even well-established newspaper brands are taking a hit they might not be able to recover from.
In lieu of such a swiftly moving world, publications are shifting online. Popular examples include The Guardian, The Chicago Sun Times, and Forbes magazine. While most of these online variations rely on advertising to pay the bills, and some such as The Guardian even rely on donations from their subscription base, many publications have chosen to rely on paywalls for maximizing revenue, to a middling public reaction. BusinessInsider, for example, only allows users from a certain IP to go through a limited swath of articles before they’re all collectively obstructed from view via a banner, asking the reader to buy a subscription package if they wish to continue reading. Naturally, users across the internet have found multiple exploits and such to go around these paywall banners (which this article will not go into detail, for purely legal reasons), but a new trend has been established: if you want to read online, you will have to pay online.
Reuters is a large corporation, amassing over 2,500 journalists and 600 photographers from across the globe, with 12 of them having died in the line of journalistic duty. With such a dedicated workforce, relying on layoffs seems like the last possible option any company would wish to go for, and such, it seems like Reuters too has finally thrown the towel in on free online content, and is setting up paywalls. However, not all is lost. The company states that it will still allow users to read 5 stories for free per month, after which they will be required to sign up for a monthly subscription of USD $34.99.
Photo: REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
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While it’s rather easy to immediately start gnashing one’s teeth at such an opening line, let us zoom out and take a glance at the current landscape media and journalism is dealing with. Newspaper print journalism is slowly fading, as the general populace gets more and more reliant on online publications, articles, videos, podcasts, and so much more for their share of the news. With so many options suddenly available to everyone, typical journalistic endeavors and even well-established newspaper brands are taking a hit they might not be able to recover from.
In lieu of such a swiftly moving world, publications are shifting online. Popular examples include The Guardian, The Chicago Sun Times, and Forbes magazine. While most of these online variations rely on advertising to pay the bills, and some such as The Guardian even rely on donations from their subscription base, many publications have chosen to rely on paywalls for maximizing revenue, to a middling public reaction. BusinessInsider, for example, only allows users from a certain IP to go through a limited swath of articles before they’re all collectively obstructed from view via a banner, asking the reader to buy a subscription package if they wish to continue reading. Naturally, users across the internet have found multiple exploits and such to go around these paywall banners (which this article will not go into detail, for purely legal reasons), but a new trend has been established: if you want to read online, you will have to pay online.
Reuters is a large corporation, amassing over 2,500 journalists and 600 photographers from across the globe, with 12 of them having died in the line of journalistic duty. With such a dedicated workforce, relying on layoffs seems like the last possible option any company would wish to go for, and such, it seems like Reuters too has finally thrown the towel in on free online content, and is setting up paywalls. However, not all is lost. The company states that it will still allow users to read 5 stories for free per month, after which they will be required to sign up for a monthly subscription of USD $34.99.
Read next: How Do Consumers Describe Different Ad Types On Social Media, TV, Websites and Email Campaigns
