How much would you pay per subscription?

[PK Koduri]

There is a great discussion going on here on SI about the future of Journalism and News Media. Most of the success of any new business model will depend on generating revenue either through subscriptions or donations/contributions. Most of us use services like SI, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter for free. If suddenly tomorrow these services start charging you a subscription fee what is the most you would pay?

[Chris Tomlinson]

Why not pay for a quality online newspaper?

I'm not saying I would either, because, well, for #1 I own my local site and #2, I'd Google it or look elsewhere like most others and I assume that's your reasoning as well?

[Chris Tomlinson]

I think any social media site needs to offer some sort of call to action that would make people want to pay for it. Would I pay $1.00 a year for FB? $5.00/yr? Yea, probably, but that's only because I've made a few (not a lot) business deals off of it and my R.O.I. is ridiculously high.

And it seems one company in China, according to this article is a social media site, makes a lot of money and has done so in a short period of time.

But what they've done is given their users IVAS (Internet Valued-Added Services). Facebook and MySpace should listen up and pay attention, because I think this is a much better business model than what they have now.

Of course the flip side to this is you're talking two completely different cultures and I'm not sure too many U.S.users would be swiping their credit cards online to buy virtual clothes, jewelry and what not for their Avatars. I think I look damn good right now without any bling-bling anyways. :o )

[Mike Seidle]

Price is set by competition in the market, so the first mover will be punished heavily. That said, I have in the past paid for LinkedIn and currently do for Plaxo, which were well worth the price given the additional features they offered.