Valleywag Understands How Content Works

Valleywag highlights the new Time cover and makes the most excellent observation about how self-important the media is (see How Not to Save Newspapers).

The problem with micropayments is not technology. It's that consumers are fundamentally uninterested in paying per article. Isaacson dismisses the problem of "mental transaction costs," but it's quite real. It's almost impossible to determine the value of an article before you read it. And the amounts we're talking about – 3 cents? 5 cents? 10 cents? – aren't worth the time it takes to decide how much one is willing to pay.

The advocates of micropayments also forget the basic law of supply and demand. Editors today increasingly talk about "commodity news" – the numbingly same mass of articles written about the same news event, adding nothing to the reader's knowledge. Why would anyone pay for those? The snobs of print media also forget that they have long competed with free radio and television news broadcasts. The news will come out, one way or another. It's the classic vanity of writers to think that they have created the one perfect story that exceeds all others. The clear-minded statistics of Web usage quickly reveal this as a delusion.

The Time cover alone is proof of how self-absorbed the media truely is. I picture a room full of editors and somebody with a pencil behind his ear and his thumbs pulling on his suspenders says, "We have a brand-spanking new President, financialpocalypse, three tax-evading cabinet nominees, an impeachment of the Illinois governor, bankers with tax-funded bailouts acting like Hollywood divorces on Rodeo Drive, and the continuing freefall of congressional approval ratings. I got it! Let's make the cover about newspapers. That's what the people want; they want a cover story about papers, see!"

Owen Thomas gets how content works, which is why his quote above is so good. Unique content is worth paying for, but the entire news industry is failing, including Time. It has more to do with content than the media wants to admit. The media will probably continue to blame consumer tastes as they mindlessly publish more about themselves.