Paywalls For and Against

On your blog:

For

Q. What does David Simon mean by ‘slow suicide’?

• He means that the news industry is going to end up destroying themselves by Slow Suicide.

Q Why does he mean by saying anti-paywall people “don’t understand the first thing about actual journalism”?

• He means they don't understand that people need to make money and with newspapers and journalism, as a whole, on a decline. People who condemn paywalls are essentially condemning the entire news industry.

Q What does he mean by “journalism is a profession”?

• He is saying that journalism is a job. It requires wages and actual money; people's lives depend on this just as much as any other job.

Q. What do you think made 1 million people pay for the NYT(New York Times)?

• They must have paid for the political view as well as the price or perhaps it is the ease of access.

Against

Q What does he mean by “Band-Aid to cover a bullet hole”?

• They are trying to say that they are covering the problem in-adequately which just makes the problem more noticeable. It could also be trying to say that their solution is only temporary and eventually will, like a band-aid, fall off with minimal effort and protection.

Q How much would you pay for Facebook (or any other social network)? Why this 

much?

• I would pay a minimal amount on Facebook, if I had an intention of using it, but would expect some sort of reward or new features to be added frequently.

Q. What would make you pay to read a newspaper? (Value-added content)

• I would pay the same amount as the average right now. The only real reason I would pay for a newspaper, even though I can receive it in almost every aspect of my life, is if they have the same political views as me which would allow me to receive some form of validation.

In your own words put together a 200 – 300-word argument IN FAVOUR of Paywalls – to try to convince a young person who has never paid for a newspaper. 

Paywalls are used by newspaper companies so that the users are restricted to view their content in which they force them to subscribe to their website. This is beneficial for young people because firstly, it is easy to access and it is on the internet. Young people will just need a Wi-Fi connection to the internet and they can read a newspaper article if they have paid for a subscription. This means that the companies don’t have to waste money printing papers and they can devote all their time putting the articles on their website. Additionally, the more people sign up for a subscription, the more revenue they are earning. Furthermore, the internet will know about the user’s favourite topic and it will select the papers that they like reading. This establishes that the user doesn’t have to waste their time looking for articles they like reading. In addition, the website that they are subscribing to will be secure so the website can’t be hacked easily and the user will gain trust to the website. Finally, there will be no adverts when they have paid the subscription. The adverts that will be on the website, blocking the article which enrages the user will be extinct so that the user can enjoy reading the article without any distractions.