Letter To The Editor: Something's Gotta Give

Reader Daniel Hernandez, reporter of the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper in New York commented on the previous post: RE: Shall Readers Pay For Online News? Hernandez also keeps a blog on the Huffington Post.

"I agree. They've created a monster. But I still think they can turn it in their favor and turn a profit. They got us addicted -- that's usually the hard part -- now they need to cut us off.

I think an e-commerce company like PayPal has to handle micro-payments. We won't have patience to sign up for every newspaper. It's gotta be a one account for all sites kinda thing. And if any of 'em want it to work, they all need to do it. If you got 'em all in a room -- and there really aren't that many newspaper companies -- they'd all agree they need a new way to make money.

But how do blogs fit in? They point out articles no one would ever catch, but paraphrase the content. That could be a real problem if a blog's free and a paper ain't. But is it legal to quote paid content? I don't think so. Either way, something's gotta give there on both ends. This model wont work for much longer."