From Newspaper Death Watch: Paywalls Come Tumbling Down
Will there soon be any customers who remain willing to pay for general news? With few barriers to competition on the web, readers are able to access the precise type of news they want written for readers (almost) just like them. While some will be willing to pay (although I think “donate” is a more appropriate here) for news and independent journalism and information, relatively few would seem likely to subscribe to mass, corporate, lowest common denominator offerings from, for example, The Washington Post.
Will Matt Drudge’s 1998 prediction on the growth of citizen journalism only accelerate in coming years? My guess is yes, and there will be some (more) hard-falling casualties that change the information landscape.