A couple weeks ago my subscription to the online version of The Wall Street Journal expired, then seamlessly auto-renewed. I don’t like auto-renew and didn’t know it was on. Add to this, the Journal’s move to a free content model supported by ads, per Rupe, and I said to myself, I hope they give me a refund when they do go free.
But, today The New York Times reports that Rupe said not so fast on the free thing. When you think about it, why be free when you have people like me on auto-renew? It makes sense to keep paid subscribers.
Here’s a more twisted reason to keep things the way they are:
Dow Jones executives argue that the firewall not only generates revenue, it also creates an elite audience of high-income business-oriented readers whom advertisers pay a premium to reach. The Journal has a million paying online subscribers, some of whom also subscribe to the paper in print.
