I believe that even with easy payment technology, techno-readers still won't pay directly for all content by 2004 or in any other year.

Funny thing about the "World Wide" Web—sometimes it's exactly that. When, last July, ZDNet Australia quoted Factiva's CEO as saying that consumers will pay for all content by 2004—after all, "valuable information has a price"—that statement was cited within hours by a variety of U.S. Weblogs and online "magazines." As the year ends, I thought it might be appropriate to offer a few reasons that this assertion is unlikely to come to pass.

Set aside for the moment the "paying for content" issue, although nothing since my May 2001 column ("I Will Buy No Content Before Its Time") has changed since I wrote it. Let's pretend that the major problems for small online payments have been solved—although I've seen no evidence that this is true. Those of you in the industry shouldn't need a reminder of those problems, but just in case:

• Sensible people won't pay enough for an individual article-length piece of "content" to make credit cards or even PayPal worthwhile.
• No micropayment system has emerged that's truly easy to use and that convinces tens of millions of people that their financial information will remain confidential and they won't get ripped off.

Never mind. Suppose we all decide Microsoft or Citigroup or some other micropayment-peddler-to-be-named provides us with a warm, fuzzy, trustworthy way to spend a quarter at a time by 2004. And that, by then, we're all ready to click that "Buy this document" button as casually as we close pop-under windows without looking at them.

I believe that even with easy payment technology, techno-readers still won't pay directly for all content by 2004 or in any other year.

The Circle of Gifts
Just over a year ago, I wrote about the "circle of gifts" that leaven the commercial Web with content generated by people whose compensation is an audience rather than money. That circle has grown considerably in 2002. It includes—among other things—the following:

• Scholarly electronic journals supported by universities, associations, or groups of interested scholars. Dozens of free online, refereed journals have been publishing for more than half a decade; hundreds have begun over the past few years. While many fade away, others become significant parts of their fields. Within the sub-field of online publishing, the University of Michigan's Journal of Electronic Publishing is in its eighth year.
• Topical lists by the hundreds of thousands, many older than the Web and even the formal Internet. Today's free tools for list operation may or may not survive through ad support, but lists will continue—and the best lists provide substantive content, much of it from authoritative sources.
• Weblogs blur the line between professional and amateur content. A growing number of journalists and writers use Weblogs to go beyond their articles and columns. Many notable people start blogs; some of them keep going. Thousands of shared topical blogs serve to focus virtual communities. Some Weblogs have institutional sponsorship, but most work because people care about them—and the open-source software running most blogs is designed to be free. Even if 90% of Weblogs are diaries and otherwise trivial, the good ones make up a broad and deep body of free content that will continue growing.
• Newsletters, zines, and non-scholarly publications may be backed by an institution, but many appear for the same reasons as Weblogs and lists: Because some people are more interested in audience than compensation. As with Weblogs and formal journals, many of these fade away in months, years, or weeks—but others continue for years with no signs of fading.

Many people who write for money also contribute to the circle of gifts. We all have our own reasons for doing so, and those reasons aren't necessarily that we can't sell everything we write. As long as those reasons make sense, there will be no lack of free online content, much of it every bit as well done as the best newspapers and magazines.

Free to the Reader
Many forms of content, whether online or off, involve paid writing and editing but are free to the reader. Some of those forms won't change, barring revolutionary changes in the government and the way people work.

• Government Documents: Government at all levels generates huge quantities of important content. Many of you rely on government resources as the basis for your own paid content. I've seen estimates that government-generated content (on the Web and elsewhere) may exceed all privately-generated content in total volume. There's so much worthwhile content coming from government entities that you can be certain there will always be free online content and lots of it.
• Academic Content: There's more free-to-the-reader content coming from academia and nonprofit agencies than refereed journals and lists. Position papers, lectures, conference proceedings (and virtual conferences), and many other forms of content appear as part of the missions of these organizations. Currently, the Free Online Scholarship (FOS) movement promotes the concept of online journals that pay their way through author fees, while self-archiving and open archive initiatives encourage individual scholars, colleges and universities, and topical centers to maintain freely available archives of scholarly papers. By 2004, it's nearly certain that many more important articles and papers will be free to the reader.
• Promotion and Controlled Circulation: Do you pay for every worthwhile magazine and newspaper you receive? I thought not. You probably get some trade publications free because you're a decision-maker in the content industry, others because you're involved in related industries. Controlled circulation represents a significant portion of the print periodical market. Why should online suddenly eliminate the equivalent? Promotional material isn't always advertising. Companies turn out informational material and significant content to further their aims; as long as readers understand where the content's coming from, this is neither unethical nor unseemly. I see no reason to believe that companies will suddenly start charging readers for content that serves mutual purposes; it would be foolish to do so.
• Libraries: RLG distributes online content in several forms, including bibliographic records, abstracting and indexing services, and a growing body of cultural materials. With very few exceptions, no student or faculty member pays directly for that content, but we're not government supported and we do expect to be paid. I can read articles in Expanded Academic Index for free, from home, if I'm willing to adjust a browser proxy setting and go through my local public library. I can also read as many books as I want without paying a cent for each one, but that's offline and a slightly different issue. Pooled resources will continue to pay for many forms of online content, whether the pool is tax money for a public library or acquisitions and services budgets of academic and corporate libraries.

Somebody Pays?
I can see you arguing with that last bullet: That's paid content. True enough, but it's free to the reader. And that's the point.

Don't get me wrong. I hope a micropayment mechanism becomes established. I hope content providers learn that $2.95 is too much to ask for most articles—that, with the right micropayment system, they might end up earning more from articles priced at fifty cents. I look forward to seeing a mix of paid and free content that reduces the absurd overload of ads at places like Salon while helping to keep valuable resources going. The end of free content? Not in my lifetime, and certainly not in a mixed economy.