Dear Editor,
We had a very lively discussion on our Guyanese mailing list on your decision to charge for internet access to your news. Not one of the Guyanese subscribers polled will pay for your news.
I have been buying your newspaper daily and will cease buying same on December 1, 2010 as a form of protest for Guyanese overseas. I might even start a movement on this. The Chronicle and the others will pull ahead of the SN.
SN has to have money over the years and I am sure that the government advertisements cannot bankrupt SN. If this is so, then it stands to reason that the SN is dependent on these ads for its survival.
Perhaps SN can learn from this Wikipedia article on the New York Times web presence:
“The Times has had a strong presence on the Web since 1996… In September 2005, the paper decided to begin subscription-based service for daily columns in a program known as TimesSelect, which encompassed many previously free columns. Until being discontinued two years later, TimesSelect cost $7.95 per month or $49.95 per year, though it was free for print copy subscribers and university students and faculty.
To work around this, bloggers often reposted TimesSelect material, and at least one site once compiled links of reprinted material. On September 17, 2007, The Times announced that it would stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight the following day, reflecting a growing view in the industry that subscription fees cannot outweigh the potential ad revenue from increased traffic on a free site.
In addition to opening almost the entire site to all readers, The Times news archives from 1987 to the present are available at no charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain.”
Yours faithfully,
Harold E Hopkinson
