
The Paywall may be journalism's Maginot Line - davewiner
http://scripting.com/stories/2010/12/12/thePaywallMayBeJournalisms.html
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iwwr
The content just has to be good enough to be worth paying for. The internet is
not killing newspapers by "stealing their news", but by raising the bar. In
other words, the internet's supply of poor writing has made classical
newspapers obsolete. Raise your standards!

~~~
jakarta
...or useful enough to get your subscription paid for by your employer.

(see: the WSJ, Financial Times, the Economist)

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patrickk
Notice how by likening a paywall to the Maginot Line, the internet must take
the role of Hitler's invading forces. I wonder if that was the author's
deliberate implication.

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pyre
I think that you're taking the analogy too far. The main point seems to be
that the paywall is this 'line in the sand' that keeps moving as soon as the
'enemy' crosses it.

~~~
kujhytrtyu
The maginot line failed because they only built it along the border with their
enemy (germany) and didn't continue it along the border with their friend
(belgium) - so the enemy simply drove around it.

In newspaper terms it's like having a paywall but allowing the full text of
the story to appear via Google's cache.

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RickHull
> The maginot line failed because they ... didn't continue it along the border
> with their friend (belgium) - so the enemy simply drove around it.

Wikipedia says this is a myth:

> It is a myth however that the Maginot Line ended at the Belgian border and
> was easy to circumvent.[2] The fortifications were connected to the Belgian
> fortification system, of which the strongest point was Fort Eben-Emael.

[2] _Mosier, J. The Blitzkrieg Myth: How Hitler and the Allies Misread the
Strategic Realities of World War II, HarperCollins, 2004, pp. 2, 38._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line>

~~~
kujhytrtyu
Still happened though

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foljs
Still _something else_ happened --not the original argument (that they
bypassed it because it wasn't extended to Belgium).

~~~
davewiner
The moral of the story is that, while the Maginot Line would have been a
perfect defense in World War I, it was ineffective in World War II. People are
always preparing to fight the last war. Very common mistake. A failure of
imagination.

