Thinking Outside the Browser

Writing about the challenge of getting consumers to pay for news -- is anybody talking about anything else these days? -- Slate's Jack Shafer raises a point worthy of further consideration: Some of the most successful experiments in paid digital content -- in particular Apple's iTunes store and Amazon's Kindle e-reader -- operate outside the environment of the web browser. Shafer thinks that's part of why they work so well:

Consumers have been conditioned to think that content delivered by a browser is supposed to be free. They get annoyed when they encounter a pay wall on a browser but are more psychologically open to the nonbrowser Web interface.

Without a doubt, this is true. One thing that makes it so is the ever-present Google search field in every browser window. Upon encountering a demand for credit card information while web surfing, anyone who's not an absolute drone will try punching a few terms into Google to see if there's a free alternative. There may not be, but once you wander off down that path, the chance of returning to the point of purchase falls precipitously.

BUT: There's a big difference between the types of content sold over iTunes and Kindle and the type newspapers are trying to sell. To very loosely recapitulate Jeff Jarvis's argument, a song, a TV program, a novel and even a non-fiction book all provide an experience; a newspaper story provides information. An experience is irreducible and non-fungible; information is just the opposite. You don't watch Flight of the Conchords to find out what happened last week; you do read The New York Times to find out what happened, and you can just as easily accomplish that end by reading the Washington Post. Moving the transaction outside the browser environment isn't going to fool consumers into paying for something they can very easily get for free elsewhere.