Newspapers are an advertising supported business, right? The more people that read them, the happier the advertisers will be, and up goes revenue, I'd think.

Then why do many newspapers require registration for their online articles? Are they confused about their business model? I'm sure they think they need to collect demographic information and charge people to access their premium content.

Here's a sample. Click these links to the same basic story, and tell me which newspapers you'd bother to read:

Governor on Game in Live Forum - San Francisco Chronicle (10/25)
Gov. Schwarzenegger Fields a Few Hostile Questions - San Jose Mercury News (10/25)
Schwarzenegger Scores With a Quasi-Debate Performance - Sacramento Bee (10/25)
Governor: Prop. 76 Not a Grab for Power - San Diego Union-Tribune

Two of those links require registration (San Jose Merc and SacBee) - forget about that. I'll check out the same story in the SF Chronicle and the San Diego paper. If ALL of them wanted me to register, then I might check Google news or I'd just forget about reading the article all together.

How hard is this to understand?

¶ 10/25/2005