[thelist] CNN Pay to use?

Bill Haenel bill at webmarketingworx.com
Tue Mar 19 14:22:01 CST 2002


> Exactly, you want CNN programming on your television, so you pay for
> it.  You want general Internet access, so you pay for it.  You want
> CNN.com content on your Web browser, so you pay for it.

I wasn't pointing a finger at any one guilty party. This model just seems a little silly.

Yes, I pay for cable tv: part of the bill goes to access and part goes to programming. So why do I have to pay for the stuff I get on the net twice? First I pay for access, then I pay for the content (in part or whole, whatever - yes, I did read the whole article). If cable TV worked this way, we'd have only a handful of channels, 'cause after paying for cable access, most of America wouldn't be able to pay for more than a few channels. Likewise, you're gonna find that you might afford Real's new media package thing, but not much else.

I'm not saying I have the answers, but I'd like to clarify that I do not fault CNN or any other web-content-producing company for wanting to be able to pay for what they deliver. Rather, I find fault with the model that requires the money a user pays for service to completely miss the pockets of those producing the content and only make it into those providing the service. When you consider this point, it's no wonder discoverychannel.com no longer produces web-only content (officially). The net is just too damned expensive when you do it the way it's being done now.

BH




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