The Murdoch press (a.k.a. The Times) have now announced that they will start charging for internet access from June.
The price is going to be £1 a day, or £2 a week.
I’ve criticised this before.
They clearly think that most people can afford to pay £2 a week, which is, of course, true.
However, reading just one newspaper is the old way of getting news. On a typical day, I probably read two articles in The Times, two in The Telegraph, one in The Guardian, three in The Independent, two in The Glasgow Herald and one in The Scotsman (if we count just British newspaper websites).
If they all introduced the same Murdoch Tax as The Times, I would have to pay £12 a week, or £624 a year, plus similar amounts for Danish newspaper websites.
There’s of course no way I’m could afford to pay that much money to satisfy my hunger for news, and fortunately I can just say no. The sites that will stay free (such as the BBC, Google News and the blogs) will be enough, and although I will miss The Times occasionally, there’s no way I’m going to pour oil onto the slippery slope by paying the Murdoch Tax.
If we all boycot it, they will soon enough make things free again.