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A paywall is a system that prevents Internet users from accessing webpage content without a paid subscription. There are both "hard" and "soft" paywalls in use. "Hard" paywalls allow minimal to no access to content without subscription, while "soft" paywalls allow more flexibility in what users can view without subscribing, such as selective free content and/or a limited number of articles per month, or the sampling of several pages of a book or paragraphs of an article. Newspapers have been implementing paywalls on their websites to increase their revenue, which has been diminishing due to a decline in print subscriptions and advertising revenue. While paywalls are used to bring in extra revenue for companies by charging for online content, they have also been used to increase the number of print subscribers. Some newspapers offer access to online content, including delivery of a Sunday print edition at a lower price than online access alone. News sites such as BostonGlobe.com and NYTimes.com use this tactic because it increases both their online revenue and their print circulation (which in turn provides more ad revenue).〔 Creating online ad revenue has been an ongoing battle for newspapers – currently an online advertisement brings in only 10–20% of the funds brought in by a duplicate print ad.〔 It is said that "neither digital ad cash nor digital subscriptions via a paywall are in anything like the shape that will be needed for () to take the strain if a print presence is wiped away."〔 According to Poynter media expert Bill Mitchell, in order for a paywall to generate sustainable revenue, newspapers must create "new value" (higher quality, innovative, etc.) in their online content that merits payment which previously free content did not. Most news coverage of the use of paywalls analyzes them from the perspective of commercial success, whether through increasing revenue by growing print subscriptions or solely through paywall revenue. However, as a solely profit-driven device, the use of a paywall also brings up questions of media ethics pertaining to accessible democratic news coverage. == History == The history of the paywall is one of fluctuation. The first major newspaper to implement a paywall was ''The Wall Street Journal'' in 1997, which gained more than 200,000 subscribers in a little over a year. ''The Wall Street Journal'' has retained its "hard" paywall since its inception.〔 Despite the presence of the paywall, ''The Wall Street Journal'' has remained popular, acquiring over one million users by mid-2007,〔 and 15 million visitors in March 2008. In 2010, following in the footsteps of ''The Wall Street Journal'', ''The Times'' (London) implemented a "hard" paywall; a decision which was highly controversial, because unlike ''The Wall Street Journal'', ''The Times'' is a general news site, and it was said that rather than paying, users would seek the information for free elsewhere. Following the paywall’s implementation, however, it has been deemed neither a success nor a failure, having recruited 105,000 paying visitors. In contrast, ''The Guardian'' has resisted the use of a paywall, citing "a belief in an open internet" and "care in the community" as its reasoning – an explanation found in its welcome article to online news readers who, blocked from ''The Times’s'' site following the implementation of their paywall, came to ''The Guardian'' for online news. ''The Guardian'' has since experimented with other revenue-increasing ventures like open API. Other papers, prominently ''The New York Times'', have oscillated between the implementation and removal of various paywalls. Because online news remains a relatively new medium, experimentation is key to maintaining revenue while keeping online news consumers satisfied.〔 Some implementations of paywalls proved unsuccessful, and have been removed.〔 Experts who are skeptical of the paywall model include Arianna Huffington, who declared "the paywall is history" in a 2009 article in ''The Guardian''.〔Huffington, Arianna (11 May 2009), ("The Paywall Is History" ), ''The Guardian'' (London). Retrieved 25 October 2011.〕 In 2010, Jimmy Wales (of Wikipedia fame) reportedly called ''The Times's'' paywall "a foolish experiment." One major concern was with content so widely available, potential subscribers would turn to free sources for their news. The adverse effects of earlier implementations included decline in traffic and poor search engine optimization.〔 Paywalls have become controversial, with partisans arguing over the effectiveness of paywalls in generating revenue and their effect on media in general. Critics of paywalls include many businessmen, academics such as media professor Jay Rosen, and journalists such as Howard Owens and media analyst Matthew Ingram of GigaOm. Those who see potential in paywalls include investor Warren Buffett, former ''Wall Street Journal'' publisher Gordon Crovitz, and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Some have changed their opinions of paywalls. Felix Salmon of Reuters was initially an outspoken skeptic of paywalls, but recently expressed the opinion that they could be effective. A NYU media theorist, Clay Shirky, was initially a skeptic of paywalls, but in May 2012, wrote, "() should turn to their most loyal readers for income, via a digital subscription service of the sort the (York Times )" Paywalls are rapidly changing journalism, with an impact on its practice and business model, and on freedom of information on the Internet, that is yet unclear. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「paywall」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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