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The Psychology of Shopping Imagine this scenario, you go to town and you are going to visit a particular shop. On arrival you enter but certain areas are walled off, you cannot even browse. You are unable to find what you want. You leave the shop, not likely to return, a bad shopping experience. In future you are most likely to chose another store Translate this experience to the Web and the pay for news scenario You visit a website only to find sections are walled off. Your choice is limited; if you wish to read, pay. Pay for what, the news, information. On the Web information is only a click away. The viewer has choices, visit another website In the future you are unlikely to visit the site which did not provide you with what you required, they are off your list ............................................................................................... The News Online In the off-line world people do not pay for the news, the subscription or fee paid at the local dairy to obtain the newspaper has little to do with paying for the news, advertisers pay for the news to be broadcast. So to say that people in the on-line world should pay for the news as they do in the off-line world is misleading. The off-line newspaper model is broken, the decline is not recent and was evident to those in the newspaper industry many years ago, when advertisers no longer limited to print, commenced advertising with other media. The problem the newspaper industry has with or on the the Web is how they (the newspaper industry) can bring the advertisers with them onto the Web. And in this respect the newspaper industry has been its own worst enemy. They are well aware that people are on-line but their own sales promotions push the advertisers to advertise in the newspaper. People in business are swayed by sales talk, by people who give the impression they know what is right and correct and if the sales rep says advertise in the newspaper they are inclined to follow that advice because that is what they have always done People do not buy a newspaper to view the advertisements; they buy a newspaper for the news and an advertiser hopes that while reading the news, the reader sees their advertisement. That is the business model, news surrounded by advertisements, and if you look around the Web the same scenario exists, news surrounded by advertisements. The debate about paying for the news is a red herring, it is an admission that they the newspaper people have done a good job convincing advertisers to stay with print when the advertisers' audience has migrated to online. The problem the newspaper people now face is how to about face and convince their advertisers that being online is where they now should be. It is no longer a situation where the people follow the businesses, people in business have to go where the people go, and that is on-line, but all their upbringing, what they have been told, led to believe has not prepared the people in business for the changing world of advertising. Their masters have let them down and now the masters who controlled the news wish to charge the people for their errors. They wish to wall off information but this will only exacerbate the problems the newspapers industry faces. If the newspaper industry does convince advertisers to follow the newspapers online and advertise alongside the news items and the news items are walled off, fewer people will have the opportunity to view the advertisers' offerings which is not good business for the advertiser. Remember the psychology of shopping, if the prospective buyer cannot locate the item they require in one store or they find the items walled off, they will go elsewhere, possibly never to return to the original store. You could say the newspaper industry has been hoist by its own petard and spare a thought for the advertisers who know only about advertising in the newspapers, they are destined to walk in the wilderness. Contact Firstsearch