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How Do You Protect Your Web Content?

Most of us who offer content on the Web make it freely available. The entire contents of webereference.com are offered to you, our dear readers, at no charge. The content provider uses banner ads to recoup costs and give some pocket change to authors as incentive to contribute.

That model is friction-free for the consumer. You have to put up with banner ads, but they're pretty small, and pretty tasteful in my opinion (and no, I have nothing to do with creating the ads you see on this page).

Other models impose more friction on the consumer, if not real costs. And every Internet information vendor finds resistance to any charging schemes. Microsoft's Slate magazine has threatened to impose up-front subscription fees numerous times, and has backed off. The Wall Street Journal implemented charging for its online site, and watched half a million readers disappear.

That's not the only form of friction. Password-based schemes, such as The New York Times' scheme, are frustrating to consumers. Are readers really going to install separate plugins for the new secure download and container schemes du jour? You need one player for N2K, and a different Cryptolopes reader for content protected by that technology.

The reality of the Web today is that most content providers face a severe challenge getting their readers to pay for access to content. Folks who'd gladly pay $3 to rent a video or $15 to buy a CD won't pay a nickel to read Slate, and won't even suffer through a signon screen. Before content providers can make serious money on the Internet, payment models need to become as painless as making a long distance phone call, and consumers will have to learn that nothing good in life is free.