The reason there are so many bloggers out there providing free content is because people like to write. Most of the bloggers find it enjoyable. Also, there are really no barriers to entry. It is free for anyone to start a blog on wordpress, blogger, typepad, etc. Internet access is available for free as well at most any public library.

Equating this to dentistry is rather ridiculous. After four years of dental school, I will have roughly $328,000 in student loans to pay back. While I find dentistry interesting and stimulating, it is hard work. No dentist would be able to stay in business by using a strictly advertising-supported model. However, there are many bloggers that can do this.

I think there is something about creating content (either written or visual such as a photographer) that people enjoy and label as hobbies. As long as there are individuals that keep putting out quality content for little to no compensation, I think it will be harder and harder for the professional writers to make a serious living. I think the same is true for photography. There are many amateur photographers posting thousands of photos each day online for others to freely use. This is making many professional photographers’ jobs irrelevant.

My personal opinion is no, I never saw anything there that I couldn’t get elsewhere. I read the news and that’s about it. I don’t care what their opinion on the news is.
Since they’re going to a paid model, I stopped bothering to follow them on Twitter or visit the site at all. I don’t feel like I’m missing out.
Could they have made money from me? Not with the typical ads used these days. Ads today are annoying and blocked as much as possible. Might they have created additional content I would have paid for — non-news content? Possibly. We’ll never know, as I won’t be going back.

A bookstore doesn’t charge you to walk in the door. Some let you browse the books and magazines. Heck, the Border’s over here has chairs and a reading spot. All free. Plenty to buy and they obviously sell plenty. The internet is more like a bookstore than a dentist’s office, I think.

When I buy something at Borders, there is a trust there. When I see online ads next to stories, I dismiss them immediately because they’re all garbage. If sites stopped using so much deceptive, annoying advertising and sold their own products and services, I think a lot more people would buy.

Therefore, the best sources of the information that solve your problems, the ones that aggregate and concentrate the answers you want, or those that best fit the niche you’re querying, will always be worth paying money for IF their content saves you time over gathering poorer information from many other sources. If the NYT can be one of the best sources of objective news, rather than sensationalist reporting, I think they’ll do fine. There’s too much pap out there. It looks like their frequent visitor system will allow them to prove their quality to the people who appreciate their stuff.

My personal approach is to provide both free and paid content. I provide free information/lessons on how to market your small business yourself, with an emphasis on the web. I also provide products that allow clients to pay me to do the work, if they don’t want to take the time to learn the things I’ve learned to allow me to do this effectively. I structure it so they can dump the more technical stuff on me, and do the more accessible parts themselves, if they wish.

The free content provides real value to visitors who may not have the money to buy my paid products, and genuinely helps them build their businesses. I believe the trust that builds will bring many of them back later, when they have more money than time.