Subsidies: One Way to Save Dead Tree Outfits
March 17, 2009
Patricians deserve subsidies. After centuries as patrons and arbiter of taste, now publishers have hit upon a sure fire way to generate revenues–subsidies. The TechDirt article “Content Companies Demand Subsidies from ISPs… While ISPs Demand Subsidies from Content Companies” caught my attention. You must read the story here. The point is that content companies want those in the digital food chain to pay them. Those in the digital food chain want the content companies to pay them. Is this a stalemate. I found this comment interesting:
The ISPs think that it’s the network that is the most important thing, and the content providers should be paying their way to use it. Meanwhile, the content companies think that it’s their content that makes the networks valuable, so the ISPs should be paying extra to offer their content. In reality, they’re both wrong.
I am not sure Internet service providers are off base. If I put my content on a third party system, I expect to pay for that service. I am a publishers of the lowest order, but I pay a couple of ISPs. I don’t have a problem with that. The notion that an ISP should pay a content provider to provide a service for the content provider rubs me the wrong way. When I pay, I have control. Subsidies for content providers are little more than vanity plays in my opinion. If I pay someone who writes for me, I own the content. I don’t expect anyone to subsidize me. Third parties can buy my time or pay me for a report, but I am not comfortable with a subsidy and those who want subsidies strike me as an order of entitlement diptera.
Stephen Arnold,
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