News - The Telegraph erects web paywall, The Sun has similar plans

[HEXUS]

Telegraph unlimited web pricing will start from £1.99 per month.

Read more.

[d032sh]

Read more.

They may as well just pull their sites completely, I'm sure they'd save a fortune in hosting costs compared to the amount they'll get from those willing to pay for news freely available in thousands of other places.

[3dcandy]

I think you're wrong though, goto a Costa and/or Starbucks (other overpriced coffee shop chains are available) and look at people sitting on their iPads (over tablets also available) drinking expensive coffee and paying through the nose to look at content...

[miniyazz]

Not sure how they justify £10/month for tablet access, but £2/month for web and smartphone access!

[TheAnimus]

They may as well just pull their sites completely, I'm sure they'd save a fortune in hosting costs compared to the amount they'll get from those willing to pay for news freely available in thousands of other places.

It depends.

I subscribe to the economist, it is I think the best news source out there, sure it is not instant, but their writers on the whole show a deep understanding of the underlying matter.

Rather than some monkey who just translates what is on the wire.

Myself I don't consider the telegraph to be a good paper, but they appear to be sure that they have many people who do and will be willing to pay.

Allowing 20 per month is more than enough for people stumbling on to the site via social media etc.

[Rob_B]

The Sun is the UK’s bestselling “newspaper”

Best...quote...ever

But yes I'm not sure what's going on with £2/month for smartphone, £10/m for tablet? There must be more to it than that.

Is ad revenue in that much of a decline that this is a viable option for them? (rhetorical, it must be or they wouldn't be doing it)
Most 'newspapers' are now just full of click bait articles (I'm looking at you Daily Mail) so will paywalls increase the quality of them? (again, I guess this is rhetorical as we're talking about The Sun)

[Willzzz]

Well that's me not reading the Telegraph any more. Luckily we tend to get decent discussions of news events on here

[cokker]

No skin off my nose, news sites like this are full of garbage, looks like they are clutching at straws where moneys concerned.

[Zerox]

I wonder how long it is before the Grauniad does the same thing, considering that they are haemorrhaging money in the tens of millions.

[crossy]

Not sure how they justify £10/month for tablet access, but £2/month for web and smartphone access!

I'd guess that the tablet edition is a richer experience - perhaps with full multimedia whereas the smartphone one will be a cut-down (/mobile) version of it. Although that doesn't explain why the web version is cheap - because I'd assume that this might have the multimedia tweaks etc.

Personally I'm not surprised - there's been a lot of press about how ad-supported newspaper sites aren't viable. And I for one wouldn't have a problem with paying for content - assuming it's well written/researched etc. What I refuse to pay for is regurgitations of whatever is current on the web or continual coverage of A-list and, more frequently, B-list celebrities.

Then again, I already pay for a digital-only version of one of my magazines (don't buy newspapers, preferring to get my general news from the Beeb), so paying for a newspaper would be no different.

What would be of more interest to me would be when/whether some of the core information sources on the web stop being ad-supported and move to subscription.

And I'm going to avoid making disparaging comments about Sun readers...

[bobharvey]

Oh yawn.
That's less for me to not look at then.

[Top_gun]

Hmm, why would anyone want to pay for some outdated news item on Hyperoptics broadband and poorly thought out political analysis? Even while the Telegraph had free subscription, I rarely visited the site.

+1 for the Economist. Also Spectator.

[shaithis]

Another reason to just read www.theonion.com instead

[kingpotnoodle]

I'm happy to pay for something I like if I think it's worth it, unlike many "citizens" I pay to download my music (usually from Amazon) and films (usually from Playstation Store for my Vita on the train)... Newspapers however I wouldn't pay for as I just want the content that much, it's not as entertaining as a film or a great many free websites and if I want to know what's going on in the world BBC news is an acceptable version of events (with suitable pinch-of-salt applied) and we all already pay for that via licence fee.

Can't imagine I'm unique, how many people really pony up for a web/digital version of the news? I'd wager most regular news*paper* buyers are either older people lacking technology and/or the will to use it, won't pay twice or would be scared off by a multi-£ monthly fee not clocking they spend that cumulatively over the month buying the paper version. And if not a regular reader then why would you pay for it? Aside from a few iPosers who having got a tablet want to make it do everything regardless of cost/practicality I don't see the market being receptive, the news just isn't exciting enough to pay for or that hard to get somewhere else for free.

[pollaxe]

Underwhelming news from two underwhelming newspapers, as far as I'm concerned.

[jjgreenwood]

looks like I'm the only one that enjoys reading the telegraph, and enjoys it more online than in the print. £20 a year ain't a massive amount.