On the verge of extinction, the SF Chronicle and Newsday decide, after “emergency” meetings, to put up paywalls. It’s not a risky move, any more than it would be risky for a hospice-bound cancer patient to start an aggressive course of Jack Daniel’s therapy. And, it’s about as likely to work. There might well be examples of businesses that bought their way back from the brink by raising prices. I’ve just never seen one.
UPDATE:
See the whole, sad, delusional, and misguided Hearst memo here, and Jeff Jarvis’ on-target commentary here.
[...] LATER: John Thornton says: On the verge of extinction, the SF Chronicle and Newsday decide, after “emergency” meetings, [...]
Apple, post-Amelio, when they junked Performas and killed the clones? Slightly weird example though, and it’s only a guess from hazy memory.
[...] In the end, the fact is that newspapers have been providing people with a poor quality product for too long, neglecting their biggest asset (the community) and have been totally unwilling to recognize the onslaught of competition coming from multiple angles. And, to that, their response has been to say that they’ll raise the price on that very “icky” community? And that somehow people will “miss them” when they’re gone? That seems unlikely. Jeff Jarvis points out an excellent point raised by John Thornton concerning the decision to charge: can you name a single dying business who raised prices and survived? [...]
[...] price when a business is dying never works. At least as I’ve written before, I can’t come up with a historical example when it has. Sure, micropayments apologists [...]