The Financial Times, as one of the more high-profile publishers to charge for their online news content, is to begin offering a PayPal option to simplify the subscriptions process.
The FT’s chief executive John Ridding explained that with regard to whether people will pay for online news content, “there has been far too much talking and not enough doing.”
The site charges £2 per day for access, which is the same as the cover price of the newspaper. Using PayPal to pay for the news services is a “frictionless, seamless process,” claims Ridding.
He adds that publishers can begin to face “subscriptions fatigue” if users face too many paywalls and that it was critical for publishers to maintain pricing power. He added that it was also essential that they continue to understand who their readers are and that providing a subscription service helps publishers follow their market more closely.
The chairman and publisher of the New York Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr, added recently that he is considering a similar option. He stated, “online subscriptions will improve our ability to grow and in the long term help us create an even more vibrant digital business model.”
