Paid Content

Paid content is a revenue model in which material published on the internet, including text, graphics, video and downloadable files, is placed behind some form of payment rather than given away for free. The model grew largely out of necessity in the newspaper industry, where online editions proved extremely popular with readers but generated far lower advertising revenue per reader than print, leaving publishers unable to offset the decline of print subscriptions with online advertising alone and pushing them to look for other ways to charge for their content. Publishers have implemented paid content in several different ways, including hard paywalls that block all access without payment, soft paywalls that blend a paywall with elements of a freemium model, micropayment systems, and pay-per-article pricing, alongside experiments such as crowdsourced funding for specific pieces of journalism and pay-what-you-want offers for selected content. The model also rests on a distinction between different kinds of digital goods: content such as music files can typically be copied and shared freely once released, whereas digital services retain a built-in scarcity that a would-be pirate cannot simply duplicate, which is one reason paid content has proven especially durable in areas such as video games, where microtransactions and premium features are sold as services rather than as copyable files.