More pay, less wall: the websites that already successfully charge for content

Many websites already offer charging options – but few, as Rupert Murdoch seems to suggest, simply lock browsers out

Charles Arthur, guardian.co.uk - Wednesday 2 December 2009 23.59 GMT

From the hands thrown to cheeks at Rupert Murdoch‘s announcement that he’s looking to put paywalls up around his newspaper properties online, you might think that they’re the unicorns of the online world, spoken of but never glimpsed.

In fact, they’re all over the place – and working well for their owners, though hardly any are simple, “pay to get in” walls. In fact, that’s the least common of paywalls. Far more common are forms of the “freemium” model, where some content is free but others items are walled away for premium subscribers...more