The reason we don't pay for online news

Americans still spend much more time with print newspapers than they do with news online -- one Nielsen study found that Internet users spent an average of 38 minutes total per month on newspaper sites. "What that says to me is that reading the news online is a worktime activity. ... Most people aren't paid to sit at a computer and read newspapers. They're snatching things throughout the day," Varian said.

People who click on a news article or a video at work as a distraction from other tasks aren't going to want to pay for it. People are willing to pay for newspapers not because they're used to paying, according to Varian, but because "It's a much nicer experience to sit there with a newspaper and a cup of coffee and have that be your leisure time activity."