re: #56 Naso Tang

It does matter what it costs. I buy $0.99 books for Kindle often, that I would never pay full price for. That way I can have 5 or 6 going at one time, depending on mood.

You’re looking at this exactly backwards.

If a book costs $7.99 in paperback and $19.99 in hardcover, but only $.99 for the Kindle version, I could see buying the Kindle version because of the lower entry barrier and because, like you said, you can have several books going on at once without much investment. But here’s what you’re missing — the books already have a price point.

The NYT, on the other hand, has offered all of its content online for FREE for years. Now they’re wanting to charge a full $15 a month for it. They’re going from zero to a monthly fee. You can’t do that and expect people to play along. They’ll just find another free source of news rather than pay the money. There are, after all, plenty of options for free news, and from major, comparable sources to the NYT. That’s the point. Few, if any, people will go from getting something at will for free to paying a premium for the same content, especially when they have other options.