https://harlanh.tech/tags/microeconomics/Recent content in Microeconomics on Harlan D. HarrisHugo -- gohugo.ioenharlan@harris.name (Harlan Harris)harlan@harris.name (Harlan Harris)Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000https://harlanh.tech/2009/10/online-publishing-micropayments-and-warm-fuzzy-feelings/Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000harlan@harris.name (Harlan Harris)https://harlanh.tech/2009/10/online-publishing-micropayments-and-warm-fuzzy-feelings/ <p>The problem of how to monetize online publishing, particularly news publishing, is neither new nor all that surprising. But the ongoing lack of a solution is steadily eating into news organizations across the country. Yesterday, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/business/media/20times.html?ref=business">the Times announced it was going to buy out or lay off 8% of its newsroom staff</a>, despite being the best national newspaper in the country and probably the one making the best use of Internet technologies. (<a href="http://infosthetics.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?search=nytimes&amp;IncludeBlogs=1&amp;limit=20">Their interactive graphics are some of the best around.</a>) How can newspapers make money on the web? Ad revenue is inadequate, and people won’t generally pay for content. <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/09/micropayments-for-news-the-holy-grail-or-just-a-dangerous-delusion/">This post</a> from a journalism blog at Harvard discusses why micropayments will never work:</p>