The Paywall at the WSJ

In 1999 I was at a monetary conference run by the Claremont Graduate University in San Miguel de Allende. Robert Mundell was there (right after he had received the Nobel in Economics) and so was Robert Bartley, at the time the Editor of the WSJ. On the way to one of the sessions I had the chance to sit next to Bartley. I asked him if the Journal had lost any subscribers because of the pricing of the paid electronic version. He said "Do you still by the print edition?" I responded yes - I still liked the print edition at home but on the road the electronic edition was wonderful and also as a research source it was wonderful. He than said "I guess we are getting $39 more in revenue than we did before the edition." I thought it was a cute answer but not entirely satisfying. A few years before Kevin Kelly had written 10 Rules for the New Economy in which he argued, "embrace the free." But soon after the conference the dot.com crash happened and the notion of the free was challenged. Yet the substance of my original question lurked in the back of my mind.

From one perspective, Bartley was right. The WSJ subscription model (the paywall) generated revenue they could not have expected, at least from subscribers. But on the other the paywall did two things. First, it made the WSJ's commentary less accessible to readers and bloggers and thus less quoted in the public discussions and by others and second, it may have also reduced the possibility for alternative revenues to come over the transom. While the policy may have made the Journal's news a bit more exclusive - as Kelly reminded us, in this era exclusive may limit influence and the real value of the commodity that the Journal or any other news source produces.

But there was a story in today's news that suggested that the Journal's new owner Rupert Murdoch is giving serious consideration to changing the policy and either eliminating the fee (which is now $39 for subscribers) or modifying it. It probably makes some sense. What is odd about the paywall policy is that a lot of the other WSJ services are very accessible - several of the columnists are available outside the paywall - either in full or part.

There are several alternative pricing models in traditional media - some give almost everything away for free (or with a bit of advertising on the site) and other charge for all or part of it. The Sacramento Bee created a political subscription service for their top political writers - but I ended up not subscribing to it because only one of the writers is worth reading and gets the ideas of blogging and I thought the price to reward ratio seemed a bit small. It will be interesting to see whether Murdoch indeed changes the paywall and how he does it.

The two photos are of Mundell from the conference. There were a couple of highlights about that conference. First, we had a very good and late night discussion about the relative value of the Euro. Second, Vicente Fox, who was then running for President of Mexico stopped by for a speech. He was good. That was the second time I met him - I also saw him early in his term as Governor when he spoke to a group in Guanajuato. In that conference I liked his Spanish because it was simple!
Finally, Mundell had a very young child with him. At one point I asked him about keeping up with the young tyke who was then about two. He said it helped to have a younger wife.