Comments on: Paywalls – The Times starts charging

By: stuartm

stuartm — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:02:12 +0000

As you mentioned, the key issue for The Times is that they don’t have much unique content. Since the paywall has gone up, I’ve been using The Guardian for my fix of British news, and I’ve also come across many other sites now linking to Guardian stories. I’d be interested to find out how the paywall has affected The Guardian’s stats – I’m sure they are through the roof. Another interesting angle on the free vs paid issue, is that I read recently that The Evening Standard is back to making a profit now that they are giving away the paper for free. That follows many years of making losses.

By: Nic Wise

Nic Wise — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 10:17:01 +0000

I suspect quite a bit. Eg for £1, I’d guess the CC gets 20-30p. So they lose 20% to those fees. Ouch.

And no, I dont think the price tested. I think they just picked a round number

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 10:11:05 +0000

I wonder how much extra cost the credit card processing brings into the equation. That’s one area where it’s lot more expensive.
But as you suggest, if they were to take the credit in larger sums, or batch transactions (a la iTunes) this would be less of an issue.

It’d be interesting to know how they came to the £1 figure. Did they test pricing on smaller properties first?