Sometimes I feel sorry for the capitalists.  They have always been able to make their profits, but they don’t seem to realize that the world has changed.   It changed pretty quickly.   The NY Times is considering charging $5 per month for access to their web site.  I predict this approach will not work out very well.  Likewise, Murdoch thinks he can charge for his content.  Well, knock yourself out.  Sure, they will get a few subscribers but it will be the beginning of the end for them — at least until they reverse it.  They will lose the eyeballs which give them significance.  Most people will simply seek out other content — and there will always be free content.

New York Times Considers $5 Monthly Web-Access Fee

The New York Times’s site “is considering charging a monthly fee of $5.00 to access its content, including all its articles, blogs and multimedia,” the survey stated.

Today, I heard somebody wondering how much people would be willing to pay for Facebook or MySpace.  Well, do you study if you want.  But I will tell you right now — for free.  People are not willing to pay anything for it.  If such sites start charging they will be replaced virtually overnight with free sites which will be happy to get a few ad clicks to keep the lights on.

Maybe this is a good evolutionary approach to helping capitalists figure out that the world has changed and left them behind.  They no longer control distribution or content.  The internet is the ultimate socialism.  Maybe, people like Murdoch should just ban the internet and declare they want a capitalistic version.  Laughable but I could probably get them to agree without too much trouble.  Yet, as long as the capitalists keep thinking that there just must be a way to profit from content, there will be a lot of pain ahead.

America is doomed.