Paywalls

For

Q. What does David Simon mean by ‘slow suicide’?

David Simon means that the industry will continue to collapse until everyone swallows hard and goes behind a paywall. Or that eventually the newspaper industry will die out unless people agree to paywalls.  

Q. Why does he mean by saying anti-paywall people “don’t understand the first thing about actual journalism”?

They do not understand how much money It costs to cover a story or to place reporters at key points where stories are. Basically that without paywalls it will be harder to cover decent stories. 

Q. What does he mean by “journalism is a profession”?

That it requires a lot of hard work and people. These people needing paying and in order for that to happen people need to pay for online products as well as physical. 

Q. What do you think made 1 million people pay for the NYT(New York Times)?

"offer one of the best newspaper experience and an award-winning newspaper" - Albert, The New York Times help service  

"loyal" "best content possible" "good quality" - Briana, The New York Times help service 

Against

Q. What does he mean by “Band-Aid to cover a bullet hole”?

The newspaper industry is already dying and using paywalls is only a short term solution that will not fix the entire problem 

Q. How much would you pay for Facebook (or any other social network)? Why this much?

I would not pay any money for these social network sites because there will always be at least one social network site/app that is free. However if all social network sites started to charge then I would possibly pay a small amount of money depending on the amount of social network sites I use (e.g. £1 for each social network and use 5 different apps/sites)

Q. What would make you pay to read a newspaper? (Value-added content)

Content that applies to me and what I care about or something I can only get from this newspaper and not any others. If these factors do not apply to a newspaper then there would be no point of paying for it when there are options of getting the news that are free.