That's the view of Heidi Nordby Lunde, a columnist with the Norwegian media website Kampanje.com as published in The Guardian today by Roy Greenslade. Heidi writes, according to the translation courtesy of FollowTheMedia:
"Paywalls are reminiscent of the classic city walls, which were common from ancient times and into the Middle Ages. They are also about as innovative.City walls were erected to protect the population against attacks from outside. Although the wall was effective against enemies for a while, it also proved to be an effective end to growth."In the end, there was a lack of opportunity for growth within the walls, combined with the military innovation that tore at them. When gunpowder came, high walls did not help."Today, one can see in many medieval towns the remnants of the old city gates or parts of walls, the old defences, overgrown by urban structures. New military strategies, opportunities for growth and alternative organisational forms won out."
It is an interesting premise and so I commented on the story...
However paywall or not, there needs to be a sustainable business model. The Guardian has no walls but your online business model isn't sustainable yet and you have fantastic content and are completely committed to the platform. Pay Walls do generate income, however I accept they may not always be sustainable too. In my opinion we are still developing business models like the Freemium model to produce a viable business model for the online world where people have come to expect everything for free or at least free at the point of use. I do find it interesting that folk will sign away all kinds of rights to get a free service.What do you think?
