Too many newspaper too little profit

For some reason, reading these two articles reminds me of a story about China's economic. This is going to be an awkward analogy, but maybe the revenue of online news is just like China's economic: growing rapidly, but from a very low point.

Will the idea of subscription work? For laptop or PC, I don't think so. Just think of how tedious it will be when you need to login to read any news story that you're interested in. Even though the cookies can be stored in your computer, you still need to login again and again when you switch computer. For example, when you want to use the computer in CMA lobby to check today's news just real quick. Besides, will you really store every login? That's something going to cost you money. Can you really trust everyone who might use your computer?

But for mobile device, I think that's possible. Because the hardware itself can be used as a identification. Actually this is already happening in Japan. Japanese can be said as heavy cellphone users, generally. They can buy almost whatever you can think of with their cellphone. And, most important of all, their system has be so sophisticated that websites can be designed that only certificated cellphone can browse. (In fact this brings a lot of negative effect, say, Internet bullying among teenagers.) Base on this technical reason, I think charging for content on mobile device will work.

However, charging users for content might work on books, music, movie, but I really doubt if that will work on news. I hate to say that, but there are just too many substitute. As long as there is one, even if only one, news organization offers their content for free, users have 100% reason to switch to free content.

Of course you can argue that if one offers news story with higher quality, people will still buy. The problem is, how many people appreciate and will pay for a "better" story? Given the quantity, and the amount they are willing to pay, can the revenue cover the cost of producing better stories?

I think arguing "we have better content" is relatively weak. If the content comes along with better service, then that might be more attractive. This is totally based on personally experience. I'm subscriber of KKBOX, a music content provider. I paid 20 dollars for half year, and I can listen to all the music on their site. I can also download the music, but the downloaded file can only be played in their software.

I've been using this service for 3 years. The reason I started buying it is because their interface saves my effort of organizing files in my computer. If I download private music, I need to create different folders and organize them in a way that I can remember. (Usually I couldn't find them right after I downloaded them.) But if I use this software, I can just do search. And I know a lot of users subscribe base on similar reason. Their content is fine, but we won't subscribe if that's only content.

So what service can newspaper offer? Search function that can help college student finish their final project? Adjust the length of different story base on users taste? I can't really think of many. But I do think news stories should be provided along with better service.