Can papers end the free ride online?

As battle for ad dollars intensifies, newspapers look for new ways to make money, including charging visitors to their Web sites.
The New York Times

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[lewissalem]

A good product...

..will sell itself.

[Razzl]

stingy online "content" doesn't compete with paper

Let's not forget that online newspapers are competing with online television station sites, online news agencies such as msnbc and cnn, and online magazines such as time.com, so holding back their unique content only hurts them with all their potential customers. I find that the content of newspaper web sites is pretty meager compared with their print offerings and find no incentive to pay for online newspaper access.

I would contend that running a web site must be a vastly cheaper enterprise than publishing a newspaper; there must be a way of making advertising pay the cost of the operation without hitting up the readers. It's already being done by some local newspapers, which sell enough classified advertising to pay the overhead. I consider major news sites such as MSNBC.com to be examples of how clever use of the browser interface encourages the readers to move back and forth between the home page and the story pages with more advertising on them. Newspaper publishers need to put some thought into what it was that made their old business model work (hint: delivery!) and realize that a similar creative solution is required in the internet environment.