{"id":298875,"date":"2010-02-09T13:41:42","date_gmt":"2010-02-09T18:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"tag:business.theatlantic.com,2010:\/\/3.35642"},"modified":"2010-02-09T13:37:20","modified_gmt":"2010-02-09T18:37:20","slug":"how-information-is-actually-getting-more-expensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/298875","title":{"rendered":"How Information is Actually Getting More Expensive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If information wants to be free, it&#8217;s failing. <\/p>\n<p>Every year the average American spends $1000 a year on services like cable, Internet and video games. Add another $1000 for cell phone services, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/02\/09\/technology\/09spend.html?hp\">writes<\/a> NYT&#8217;s Jenna Wortham, and &#8220;the average family is spending<br \/>\nas much on entertainment over devices as they are on dining out or<br \/>\nbuying gasoline.&#8221; Actually, $2000 a year to carry the world in your laptop and your phone could be the low end for real tech junkies.*<\/p>\n<p>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"09spend_g-articleInline.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/business.theatlantic.com\/09spend_g-articleInline.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt; float: left;\" height=\"369\" width=\"190\" \/>Content<br \/>\nproviders like to explain away their plunging revenue by saying,<br \/>\n<i>information wants to be free<\/i>. It&#8217;s obviously the case that the Internet<br \/>\nhas challenged journalism and music by turning the former product into freely consumed URLs and the latter into freely downloadable files. But even if we feel like we&#8217;re consuming the New York Times and Taylor Swift&#8217;s new album for free over the Internet, we&#8217;re paying thousands of dollars a year to access all that &#8220;free&#8221; content.<\/p>\n<p>Nick Carr argues that we pay this price because we really do value content highly. He puts it this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/archives\/2010\/01\/information_wan.php\">this way<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The reason we fork out all that dough is (I&#8217;m going to whisper the rest<br \/>\nof this sentence) because we place a high monetary value on the content<br \/>\nwe receive as a result of those subscriptions and fees.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We tell ourselves that we&#8217;re paying for connectivity, but obviously we&#8217;re paying to be connected to information. So how are media publishers failing if we&#8217;re paying more than ever for our media? The key seems to be that consumers have learned to put a price on access, but not on individual content. For example, my roommates have decided that paying $30 a month for Internet access is a good deal. But by that math, $1 a month seems too expensive to subscribe to <i>Vanity Fair<\/i>, which after all is just one of thousands of potential sources to learn about politics and culture and find pictures of celebrities. Today&#8217;s media mindset is &#8220;A thousand dollars for access, and not one cent for content.&#8221;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>______________________<\/p>\n<p>*Gizmodo has an awesome chart <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/5448321\/the-subscription-war-youre-bleeding-to-death\">here<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>See how it looks when you add it all up:<br \/>\n<a rel=\"lytebox\" href=\"http:\/\/cache.gawker.com\/assets\/images\/4\/2010\/01\/subscriptionwarschart3.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cache.gawker.com\/assets\/images\/4\/2010\/01\/500x_subscriptionwarschart3.jpg\" class=\"left image500\" width=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s right: if you want to stay even close to fully connected,<br \/>\nyou&#8217;re expected to cough up nearly $1,000 a month. Not for hardware.<br \/>\nFor fees. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n  <a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http:\/\/www.pheedcontent.com\/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:99a4ccea7ce8de035ad85edd817fb4b6:E5703KjDKZ42hT4OlXXCLfqr7S6XELpj%2BFvMkrdZmKIZqHqSRHQL92x8mb58nt%2BJT4MZA78cvz%2Ba'><img border='0' title='Email this Article' alt='Email this Article' src='http:\/\/images.pheedo.com\/images\/mm\/emailthis.png'\/><\/a><br \/>\n  <a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http:\/\/www.pheedcontent.com\/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:cccedaee57577a689d16fee0c9d599a5:ca0i802tM0W%2F9UZAa5jiyJnY%2FzOehtyWJjm8gfekf93z%2BFXvaCIt2OJwrmbAYWBm0ZcQYhuUpwPC'><img border='0' title='Add to digg' alt='Add to digg' src='http:\/\/images.pheedo.com\/images\/mm\/digg.gif'\/><\/a><br \/>\n  <a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http:\/\/www.pheedcontent.com\/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:d0f762a4698c82cbff06f2a50855f7e1:9wOFr%2Bdeitm9KdYKh3SFuY3ZOPvrPxQpA8vgwl4vmq0FTRiVfVcSEnoPomCE%2BSvZI3mCMOy%2BXZdp'><img border='0' title='Add to Reddit' alt='Add to Reddit' src='http:\/\/images.pheedo.com\/images\/mm\/reddit.png'\/><\/a><br \/>\n  <a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http:\/\/www.pheedcontent.com\/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:bb6257971d2776d4704ca787db435a64:6dMVLipYooIfL01bj5GoOA8r%2FOiIH2%2BodNXFoB7HSYYmmn7JjJuOti16W%2BmXXtsVEDmkRtGFWJ8pbg%3D%3D'><img border='0' title='Add to Twitter' alt='Add to Twitter' src='http:\/\/images.pheedo.com\/images\/mm\/twitter.png'\/><\/a><br \/>\n  <a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http:\/\/www.pheedcontent.com\/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:f69d72d698e4a8544b2d2989b1745c19:zJED7140bufr7CMZXeA2IiuTZ9uB%2BPBFL6l%2FSSMmn2RsSO1zqg45lLHDB5idCteaBatEef8A%2FwnS'><img border='0' title='Add to del.icio.us' alt='Add to del.icio.us' src='http:\/\/images.pheedo.com\/images\/mm\/delicious.gif'\/><\/a><br \/>\n  <a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http:\/\/www.pheedcontent.com\/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:e2c0d2e53ae16142183f379aa4a4e603:c3rPopK2dCTINT1QYrRHZwPG7lMVQGCpd2wZMPgR%2ByD7VrKijQAF7QTjy6fCRz4AuCOSCi%2BY1ZjW3A%3D%3D'><img border='0' title='Add to StumbleUpon' alt='Add to StumbleUpon' src='http:\/\/images.pheedo.com\/images\/mm\/stumbleit.gif'\/><\/a><br \/>\n  <a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http:\/\/www.pheedcontent.com\/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:362a0093b5faffc7ddc94d2bc8433e87:qDmMKmpkgjhVx1C%2Fb4lXNPeRnflXG4%2Bpe3pf71esJC0vNZfpdkNeavN%2BA2qReDkpQCyVSBGeCsdrOw%3D%3D'><img border='0' title='Add to Facebook' alt='Add to Facebook' src='http:\/\/images.pheedo.com\/images\/mm\/facebook.gif'\/><\/a><br \/>\n<br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/click.phdo?s=05426b33f24b59de85ac1779dd7a407d&#038;p=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: 0;\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/img.phdo?s=05426b33f24b59de85ac1779dd7a407d&#038;p=1\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" height=\"0\" width=\"0\" border=\"0\" style=\"display:none\" src=\"http:\/\/a.rfihub.com\/eus.gif?eui=2225\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If information wants to be free, it&#8217;s failing. Every year the average American spends $1000 a year on services like cable, Internet and video games. Add another $1000 for cell phone services, writes NYT&#8217;s Jenna Wortham, and &#8220;the average family is spending as much on entertainment over devices as they are on dining out or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298875\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}