From 'hard' paywalls to 'metered' models, how do different websites compare and how are they changing over time?
Are online paywalls, in fact, helping to preserve the print circulation of newspapers? If so, does the size of the market in which the newspaper is operating have any impact on the potential success or failure of a paywall implementation?
These are the questions that I am attempting to answer in an ongoing study of paywall models and print circulations. In this study, a sample of newspapers has been selected, representing different-sized markets throughout the United States, as well as a variety of different implementations of paywalls, ranging from "metered" paywalls that permit free access up to a certain amount of articles a month, to "hard" paywalls where most or all content is available only with a subscription
