Availability - at a token price.


Since the inception of the web, almost nobody has succeeded in making money through providing content on the internet. Very few models exist that stay afloat and earn money, and continue to provide worthwhile content. Advertisements still help maintain some sites, but there doesn't seem to be enough to go around, and the ads that exist frequently don't generate enough purchases to convince others that online ads are worthwhile. Because good content can often be copied and distributed freely, content-intensive sites can't always be sure that offering quality will be enough of an incentive for readers to pay for that content. I've tried to examine some of the dilemmas related to this issue in an article in Hebrew.

Salon.com seems to have come up with a functional solution. They offer a free day pass that allows readers to get to any and all content they choose for a full day. All a reader has to do in order to get the pass is to endure four or five screens of advertising. It's possible to return to the site again and again, day after day, and, after viewing the advertisements, get a new pass each time. I don't know whether readers who sit through these advertisements buy the products being advertised (which is usually a self-promotion for Salon.com), so I don't know whether Salon.com is making money via this approach, nor whether it will continue (which is probably a function of its ability to bring in the funds). I do know that it allows me to link to important articles, confident that anyone who wants to read them will be able to do so.



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