Three years ago, Google launched a new advertising product called “Google Consumer Surveys” that websites were encouraged to use as an alternative to putting up a paywall. The gist of it is that upon visiting a website, you get asked some survey questions, and then you are allowed access to the website’s content after that.
The success rate of this program has varied by source. One of the largest news organizations in the world gave it a try, realized it wouldn’t make as such money as charging subscribers through a paywall to access the content, and abandoned the program. Many small-town newspapers have embraced the program, figuring that it generated more revenue than they could get from a paywall and also served the pro-social objective of letting readers access all of the site’s content without having to open up their wallets.
I have a strong preference for keeping the content … Read the rest of this article!