"hey’ll quickly understand the value of their content, which, with rare exceptions like the Wall Street Journal, is something very much like zero"<p>This is very much untrue, at least in the UK. The quality dailies have had a very strong year and have driven forward the debate on all kinds of things:- parliamentary expenses, the Brown/McBridge spin sleaze, the Iraq inquiry, the News of the World tapping scandal.<p>Whether we'd have seen anything like this kind of investigation from the BBC's news organisation or online is no sure thing. Possibly in a TV show like Panorama but then you're talking about 50 such shows a year.<p>Sometimes I feel like a minority of one but when the papers start charging I imagine I'll think its a good use of my income and I'll pick one.
Pretty much to the point - just do it.<p>Although Rupert Murdoch's already decided to do this for his arsenal of papers. In Australia it will work for the financial paper The Australian Financial Review, but we'll have to wait and see how it will work out for the rest of the 'normal' papers, including the only national paper in Australia, The Australian.<p>As for me, I'm going to continue to get my news primarily from the A(ustralian)BC and the BBC, both provided by taxpayer money and providing a public service with little of the advertising baggage that commercial providers come with.