The Herald reports that Boston.com will start charging for content. 

Globe spokesman Bob Powers said charging for Boston.com appears inevitable.

“It’s going to happen one way or another,” Powers said.

It may be inevitable, but it doesn't mean it'll save 'em.  The Times tried it a couple of years ago, and it failed to generate sufficient revenue to justify it.  The idea now is that print media will close ranks.  If every newspaper still surviving decides in short order to charge for content, then we'll all have little choice but to pay.

This illustrates precisely what's wrong with old media's approach to new media markets.  They can come up with nothing better than charging for content, most of which is, frankly, not worth paying for.  And it's getting worse as papers like the Globe get bloggier.  Aside from the odd investigative piece, most of the original content in the Globe is blog-grade (when not blatantly — and boringly — blog-inspired).  If I want rambling, poorly edited, typo-riddled rants, I'll read my own blog, thanks. It's free.



The Globe's content just isn't worth whatever they're planning to charge.  We've heard the arguments before.  It's expensive to pay correspondents and to maintain foreign bureaus.  Investigative journalism takes time and resources.  But when so much of their local coverage comes from tip-offs from bloggers in the first place — why not just go to the source?  As for keeping Beacon Hill in line, you only have to look at who's getting the scoops in Washington these days to know that the Fourth Estate is alive and well online.  Want breaking news from Iran?  Check Twitter.

The Globe has so debased itself in its desperate attempt to bring in new readers that it really no longer represents an alternative to content you can get for free.  Now that you've reached the bottom, you want us to pay for it?  It's kind of like paying for sex with a dolled-up old whore when you can just go down the pub and pick up a frisky young slut without dropping a dime. 

Mr. Powers is right, though.  It is inevitable.  It represents the final, withering stage of old media.  And as such it also represents another opportunity for frisky new media. As old media outlets close ranks, all agreeing to charge for crappy content, the upstarts who find a way to offer quality content for free will finally seize the day. 

Open source is the future, bitches.  The free flow — dispersal, agglomeration, even wanton appropriation — of information is what drives the internet age.  It also happens to be the lifeblood of democracy.  What news organizations like the Globe propose doing to save themselves would destroy the web, were the web itself not essentially indestructible.  I mean, we are the web.  And the web is us.  A force of nature, a next step in human evolution. 

The newspaper industry as a whole has shown a breathtaking lack of vision.  It has sneered and smeared new media. It has viewed every new opportunity of the information age as a threat.  And now, like the doddering ancien regime at the dawn of a vibrant new age, it speaks of the past as inevitable instead of the future.