We read in the FT that the NYTimes is now considering charging for their content. With respect to what they would charge, we read:

The New York Times is preparing the ground to start charging for its news online, asking readers if they would be willing to pay between $30 and $60 a year to access its website.

The publisher disclosed that it was considering a $5 monthly fee for online access in a survey of readers. It asked print subscribers whether they would be willing to pay a discounted rate of $2.50 a month.

If one assumes that the average reader reads about three stories a day in the NYTimes, that comes to 90 stories a month, which would equal about 5 cents a story for non-subscribers, and 2.5 cents for subscribers.

Now to our poll results:

Many people (about 25%) will still want to read the newspaper for free, but the rest would be willing to pay a certain amount, ranging from 1 to 5 cents (about 60%), and and some much higher. What does this tell us (aside from the fact that the times could have saved a lot of money on consultants by just looking at my poll to inform their pricing strategy!)?

That a large majority of people will happily pay for content. We can intuit that they find value in the NYTimes content, and that they perceive there to be a difference between that content and other content they might find on the internet.

For those who are interested, the raw (and rather skimpy, but nonetheless valuable) data:

~alex