We were thinking about putting together a roundup of the discussion of pay walls at online news sites, and found that Alan D. Mutter, at Reflections of a Newsosaur, has already done it better.
“Despite determined statements by several publishers earlier this year that they intended to make consumers pay for the valuable content newspapers have given away for more than a decade, the managers of some newspapers have come to realize that they can’t afford to lose the traffic that pay walls almost certainly would turn away,” he writes.
“So, the executives are scrapping plans to charge for most, if any, of their content.”
Update: MediaNews Group plans to put up pay walls at two of its newspapers in early 2010, but with only some content requiring a fee, Editor & Publisher says. The changes will take place at the Enterprise-Record in Chico, Ca., and the York (Pa.) Daily Record, and may occur later at other company sites – such as The Denver Post and San Jose Mercury News.