Up against the #paywall | The Economist
▻http://www.economist.com/news/business/21678799-many-publishers-still-see-little-alternative-continual-cutbacks-
What can newspapers do to save themselves, besides finding billionaire owners able to withstand years of losses? For most of them, one possible saviour, getting readers to pay for online news, has not worked well. Two years after introducing a paywall for the Sun, its biggest British title, News Corp said last month that it would be scrapped. “Metered” paywalls, which let readers see a few free articles before asking for payment, have worked at some large and prominent papers like the New York Times, and specialist ones like the Financial Times (which pioneered the idea). But for most general-interest papers people tend to read the freebies, then leave. Mr Chisholm says a typical American personal-computer user spends just 228 seconds on each visit to a news website.