Matt Lindsay is quoted in an article by Jennifer Saba in the April 2009 Editor & Publisher regarding his thoughts on the potential for micropayments to help newspapers monetize online content. “I think there are a lot of people willing to pay [for online content]“, he says. “They just need a vehicle for doing it.” The article does a good job of covering the differing opinions in the industry regarding micropayments. The people that are opposed seem to believe that micropayments would be used exclusively as a method for payments. Mather Economics believes that micropayments are valuable as one of several payment options that should be available for customers. We believe it is likely most revenue would come from subscription payments, but customers should be able to buy individual pieces of content. Just as iTunes unbundling of albums into individual songs as increased the amount of music sold, unbundling newspapers will increase the amount of online content sold.
Tags: haymaker, micropayments, online content