This Time We Mean It
This
Time We Mean It
Like a growing number of
journalistic Web sites (the Wall
Street
Journal , the
Economist , and Business
Week , among others),
Slate
will begin charging for access sometime early next year.
The exact details and timetable are still being worked out, but we wanted to
let our readers know that this is coming. Yes, yes, we said we were going to do
this a year ago and blinked, but this time we really do mean it. Many things
have changed in the past year. The number of people on the Web in general, and
reading
Slate
in particular, has soared (see last week's
"Readme" for our
latest figures). We've had a chance to learn a lot about how to make
Slate
better, and our readers, we hope, have had a chance to
learn the value of what we're doing. Also, frankly, thanks to sites like
Amazon.com, more people have become comfortable with the idea of paying for
things on the Web.
We have
maintained from the beginning of this adventure that ultimately, we would have
to count on our readers to bear some of the cost. It is important to us to
become self-sustaining--not out of a concern for Microsoft's bottom line but
because that is the best long-term guarantee of editorial independence.
Microsoft has adopted a completely hands-off policy toward
Slate
's editorial content, for which we're grateful. But
obviously it's better not to be dependent on subsidies from any corporation or
individual.
One premise of
Slate
is that publishing on
the Web should make financial independence easier to achieve. Economy, of
course, is just one of the Web's glories. We're working hard at
Slate
to use hyperlinks, sound and video clips, e-mail, and other
technological marvels of the Internet to develop an exciting new form of
journalism. But sheer economy should not be sneered at. In fact, we believe
that making it easier for publications like
Slate
to become
self-sustaining will be among the Web's great contributions to democracy.
Unlike traditional magazines, we have no costs for printing, paper, and
postage. We intend to share those savings with our readers:
Slate
will charge subscribers far less than weekly print magazines such as
Time , Newsweek , the New
Republic , The
New
Yorker , and the Economist do. But any realistic
business scenario requires that readers pay something . Like roughly
equivalent print magazines, and unlike some other Web sites,
Slate
appeals to an audience that will never be broad enough to
sustain us on advertising alone. (Right now, of course, there is almost no Web
site that is free because it is sustained by advertising. Sites are free
because they are subsidized, a situation that won't endure.)
There is
evidence that, as the Web matures, the resistance to paying for content is
crumbling. Still, there are people who continue to refuse, on some principle,
to even consider paying for Web content. This puzzles us. Take
Slate
. ( Please. ) If your attitude is "
Slate
is boring and of no interest to me, and I refuse to pay for it," we can
understand that, if not agree with it. But if your attitude is "I really enjoy
Slate
, think it's entertaining and useful, visit the site while
it's free, but refuse to contemplate paying for it," we're not just puzzled but
actually a bit hurt. Here we are, a team of a couple of dozen people, plus many
contributors, all trying to put out the best magazine we can. If you like what
we're doing, please think of our feelings before you say you won't pay a few
bucks for it!
FAQ
Q: Why should I give my
money to Bill Gates? He can afford to support
Slate
without my
help.
A: Good question. An answer
is, as above, that
Slate
doesn't want to be dependent on the
charity of any rich person, even one as saintly and magnificent as our
employer. Microsoft is funding the start-up costs of
Slate
as a
business proposition and is happy to continue doing so as a business
proposition, but has no justification for asking its shareholders to subsidize
a permanently money-losing operation. Anyway, you don't expect Bill Gates to
give you Windows free, or Microsoft Word, or Internet Explorer ... whoops! OK,
the analogy isn't perfect. But you get the idea.
Slate publisher Rogers Weed will enter "The Fray" beginning Monday to
answer your questions about Slate "going paid." The thread's already
active, so to make your own comments and ask any questions, click here.
Speaking
of Bill Gates ...
Dear
Prudence, our new advice columnist, has supplied an answer to the question
posed in this space last week. (Click to read the question--but in brief, it
had to do with why one guy named Bill had managed to discourage unwanted
pursuit by a gal named Janet, when another guy named Bill had not.) Here is
Prudence's response:
Dear
Bill,
I think I can read your story
between the lines. Janet was originally attached to the first Bill, and he did
much for her. But then she found that he was making unseemly demands upon her,
including the demand to lie on his behalf. Therefore, she was conflicted,
having a love-hate relationship with this man. She was reluctant to leave him
entirely, however, because her connection with him meant much to her
self-esteem. So, by a process known to psychologists as transference, she
transferred her feelings, both positive and negative, to you, the
second-most-important Bill in the country. She both loves and hates your
entrepreneurial machismo.
What are
you to do? You should make her an offer she can't refuse. Make her a columnist
in one of your magazines, at your standard magnificent salary. She will soon
find that relationship excessively demanding and transfer her attentions
elsewhere--to Bill Cosby or Bill Bradley, perhaps.
--Prudence
P.S.: For more advice from
Prudence, click here.
We're
Dreaming of a Lite Christmas
Practically all the weekly
print magazines take a week off over Christmas, and last year
Slate
did the same. This year we decided that it would better
serve our readers to take advantage of the inherent flexibility of Web
publication by merely reducing the flow of articles, columns, and features over
the Christmas-New Year period. So for the next two weeks, we will be publishing
Slate
Lite
. There will still be plenty to read,
including new stuff on most days (including "Today's Papers,"
except on the holidays themselves). And of course, a year and a half of
Slate
is at your fingertips in "The Compost."
And in case Readme succumbs
to the holiday spirit and fails to appear for a couple of weeks, best holiday
wishes and thanks to our readers from all of us at
Slate
.
--Michael Kinsley
