So this should be a lot higher than (cost of paper)/(number of articles)
Not sure that 40c is right, mind you, just that you can't really compare it to the total number of articles, if most people don't read most of them.
I think it'll always be a mix between micropayments and subscriptions: micropayments if you only read a little, subscriptions if you read a lot from a specific title.
What do I mean?
The benefits that we get from journalism are maximized if we have expert journalists – people who dedicate their lives to being good journalists.
Good journalists need stability. If they depend on the readership rates for individual articles, they are disencentivized to take the kinds of risks that a stable institution can afford to give them.
I don't know Blendle's long term plans in terms of supporting quality journalism – but the micropayment model is at odds with giving stability to individual journalists.
Hopefully this is something your are thinking about. How can we best support journalists – and not just individual peices of journalism?
I think you're right. I can't believe I never thought of like that before.