Would you pay for something that you can get elsewhere free? It's the question the newspaper industry is asking itself this year as publishers prepare to erect paywalls around their internet sites.
Some time by the middle of this year the real action - for that read when News Corporation starts to charge for some of the content of some of its newspaper sites - will begin. Until then there is something of a phoney war. Some media companies - including this newspaper's, Fairfax Media - are standing on the sidelines, in all likelihood waiting for the wave of readers who will, initially at least, defect from News sites to theirs. Others are quietly - and some not so quietly - pushing ahead with their own plans to charge as they desperately search for the right model.
In November the Long Island daily Newsday began charging about US$5 ($5.55) a week, or about US$260 a year, for full access to its website, a considerable premium on the $US149 The Wall Street Journal charges. Three months later it has reportedly signed up just 35 people.
Next year The New York Times is having a second stab at charging readers after a failed attempt in 2007. But rather than charge just for the columnists and archives, it will offer readers a certain number of articles from its entire website free before they have to start paying a monthly fee. More details will be revealed in the course of this year.
Meanwhile The Guardian, which blazed a trail in ''new media'' and continues to be a staunch proponent of free content on the internet, has broken ranks and is charging £2.39 ($4.30) to download its app from the Apple iTunes site.
The Financial Times, which has been charging for nigh on a decade (the basic entry level is about £199 a year) is introducing free apps. Later this year it will allow casual readers to make a micropayment to buy a ''day pass'' to read articles.
Like The New York Times, which appears to be borrowing its strategy from the FT, the pink paper wants to make money from casual and committed readers. The FT says that out of a global paid circulation of 560,000 it has 121,000 digital subscribers.
''We have seen growth of 22 per cent a year in the net number of paid subscribers [online],'' says Angela Mackay, the FT's executive director of Asia Pacific and a member of the board. ''Australia is a good growth market for us and is in the top three markets in the region.''
The FT might be niche, but it and that other niche title, The Wall Street Journal, which has 400,000 digital subscribers, have proved that people are prepared to pay for something they believe is unique.
The last word - for now at least - falls to a voice that was very much in the wilderness 10 years ago when he left the FT and started charging for access to his financial commentary site, Breakingviews. Relatively fresh from selling his 10-year-old business to Reuters for £12 million, Hugo Dixon told The Guardian this week that uniqueness and quality will be key to success.
''Media groups have got to focus much more clearly on what is their unique selling point - keep the investment there, possibly increase the investment there, and everything else, which may be necessary as part of a package.'' Everything else can be bought in from elsewhere, he said.
In an age of cost-cutting and minimal investment in the media that, I fear, is a tall order.
