Wall Street Journal App Going Paid in the Near Future
By James Falconer on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 7:04 AM PST In Applications
I’ve read and commented on rumblings about this before, and now, it looks like official word is coming out. News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch has commented that the Wall Street Journal is going to charge $2 per week for use of their mobile app. That is, $2 for non-subscribers. Subscribers will get a wonderful discount, knocking the price down to $1 per week. Yucky.
The transition to paid will take place over ‘the next month or two’. Personally, I think News Corp. has this all backwards. Would I pay $1 or $2 per week for the WSJ on my phone? No friggin’ way. Would I use it if it was free, knowing I’ll have to put up with some advertisements? Yep. I suppose now that the WSJ has a huge user base, they’re going to see who sticks around for paid. I’m thinking this will be an eye-opener for them…
[Via: Financial Post]
Should the WSJ continue offering the app to you for free, even if they’re losing money?
It costs a lot to maintain apps, especially those that download fresh content from a server.
I bet that even if they lose 95% of their non-paying users, they’ll still make more than they do by giving it away for free.