De los hard paywall al modelo freemiun. Nuevas modalidades de pago en los medios digitales

Abstract

The multiplicity of variants that exist today in the payment for content in digital media makes it difficult to understand each of them. In this communication we intend to explore each of these payment systems from the most closed with hard walls of payment such as The Times and The Financial Times to the most flexible with different models such as the metered model or the freemiun model. We will also analyze other payment systems such as crowdfunding or the model of partners as owners of the medium. Regardless of the flexibility of these walls, we will detail the cases in which social holes appear and explain their justification. Our proposal is to review some successful models of financing in various media taking into account the country and the target to which they are directed. This contextualization is important because successful models in some countries would be a failure in others. Methodologically we will analyze some success strategies such as sig-nificantly improving the quality of information, offering extra content or subscription to promotions for readers to convince them of the need for payment.