So how do you make information worth paying for?

Interesting debate over how to save newspapers here: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hm-NaXE47tuN1DQKXQlgBaYJpNJA

The reality is that there needs to be some way to make providing information economically viable to do.

Personally I think any model that depends on consumers paying is not viable given current technologies. We're seeing the same problem play out in other media such as music and book publishing. All these were created during an era when technology required physical media that was impossible to copy by the individual user and therefore it was possible to control distribution by limiting access to the physical media represented by the book or record/LP/8-Track/cassette/CD. Newspapers and magazines, ironically, were less wedded to this model, generally only charging the consumer for the cost of the paper and generating most income from advertisers.

Given that information can't be held in by the current bounds of technology I think it's a losing strategy to expect consumers to pay for content at any price that would be economically viable.

On the other hand. advertisers still need to get attention and in an environment where it gets harder and harder to be noticed. What will have to change, I think, it's the expectation that advertising dollars will support the huge infrastructure of current media companies. Most of the people employed at a newspaper or magazine don't produce content.

Indeed, at a newspaper with a couple hundred employees, only a few dozen work in the newsroom and around the same work in advertising. The news media of the future will be much leaner and meaner. There will still need to be reporters, editors and ad reps but the whole printing and circulation operation will have to go, along with comparable reductions in the support staff needed.