Rubert Murdoch is now challenging his online audience, by stating that the times of free soon is over. What he really mean with his statement about taking money for the online services his news empire holds, is not easy to see at the moment. But his reasons are very easy to see. Taking payments from the users of MySpace must look as awesome in a spreadsheet, as the income loss for the ad based newspapers must look depressive these days.

But I can’t see the good idea here. On the contrary this sounds like a very, very bad idea, at least for the newspapers. Taking a broad service that provides general news behind log in for paying customers must be the most secure method of closing down. Ok, so he has done it with the Wall Street Journal, and succeeded, but that is something completely different. While the Wall Street Journal brings its niche customers critical and important, and often unique news, most of the other newspapers in Murdoch’s news corporation provide general news and gossip. And the internet is full of general news and gossip – why pay for general news and gossip provided by Murdoch?

Not to say that everything on the internet should be free. The internet is full of services we pay for, but pay for something you easily can get for free? There has to be something the media mogul doesn’t tell us.

But let’s dwell on the main issue in this; why won’t I pay? Shouldn’t it be the most obvious thing in the world that I pay for services provided for me? Well, yes. But the thing is that there’s no reason to pay for something that others are willing to offer me for nothing, is it? And despite what many journalists and editors may think about what they provide, it’s really not that unique. The daily news journalists run in flocks and hunt the same prey. The Wall Street Journal doesn’t, and they write for an industry that is willing to pay for up to date unique information, that’s why they can charge a fee for their services. To make me pay, the offer must be something I feel I can’t get from others, or for free. It’s as simple as that.

If all professional newspapers in a marked decide to close down their free online services, it will work. Then I’ll most likely sign up for at least one newspaper. But I do not think that will ever happen without establishing a cartel – which is illegal. And even if they manage to establish something close to, and a de facto cartel, it will be all too tempting for so many, to build a competitive service and give it away for free

So, what can Murdoch be thinking of, when he goes against these obvious arguments? I think he plans to bring paid services into the free business model, not to replace it.  Whether that is on pay per drink basis or by subscription, doesn’t matter. Each service will develop their unique offerings on top of their free content, which they will try to get me to pay for – some will succeed and others will not.

But what about MySpace? Will a premium membership work? Will it be possible to bring in functionality that you must pay for each time you want to use it? Will it work to close it for non-paying users? Well, I certainly think that closing it for non-paying users must be close to madness, and to bring on a premium membership that you must pay for will be dangerous. The first because there is other services out there that provides the same services for free. The second will be dangerous because then you might reduce the value most users feel they get from the service, and risk to start a migration of users to other sites that are free. And the more users that disappear from MySpace, the less will the premium members be willing to pay for that little extra. What I do think they will have to do is to build new functionality and new services that they can charge for in some way or another. In that way they don’t make the free service bad. On the contrary my guess is that they will continue to develop a competitive and useful service for everyone to use for free, but at the same time look for new services that they can bring into the community and take a small fee for every time it’s being used. That might work.

One thing is certain, though. It will be very interesting to see what Murdoch does next.