Both "Open" and "Closed" Information Models Work on Web

Two fundamentally different models have competed in Web-based information markets.

In one model, an information provider formats the presentation of information, selling advertising space to another party. These sites want search engines to find them. This model involves little gatekeeping of the user. Much of the open commercial Web operates this way.

In the other model, an information provider sells passwords to users. The passwords either allow unlimited access to a wide range of material, or they allow the vendor to track usage and require incremental payments roughly proportional to the material delivered and received. The passwords are a form of gatekeeping, and these sites generally do not allow search to threaten that gatekeeping ability.

The recent testing of "paywalls" for newspaper content will shift some content from an "open" to a "gatekeeper" mode. Will it work? It likely depends on the uniqueness of the content, and whether users can find reasonable substitutes elsewhere on the open Web.

Both ad-supported and "paywall" models can work, but the latter really does require uniqueness, one might argue. The Wall Street Journal has been behind a paywall all along, and has been the salient example of a gated approach that seems to work.

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