Can anybody think of case history where shifting something from a physical medium to a digital medium has gone well?
I remember, many moons ago, when I used to read Zillions: Consumer Reports for Kids. Then, one day, I received a mailing saying that Zillions would only be available online, not in print. Of course, there would still be a charge for access. I didn't buy into it, and now you will find no reference to Zillions on www.consumerreports.org (at least, none that I can find).
I also remember a concept that They Might Be Giants came up with to sell content online. After a couple of mildly successful attempts at online-only albums, they announced a project to open up super exlusive content online to people for about $150 a year. It promised new, rare, and previously unreleased content on a monthly basis as an alternative to releasing the content on CD. I know people that justified it, saying it was the same cost as buying a new album a month. For the first couple of months things were okay, but by the end they were releasing less and less, and most tracks were things that could already be found on previous releases, and most buyers had lost faith. After one year, it was discontinued. To this day, the only internet TMBG album I own is the Long Tall Weekend album, which I purchased when I also got a real CD copy along with the soft copy.
I remember when the Chicago Tribune first went online, and sent out mailers to customers advertising that they could now access the paper online, but for a fee. As with most papers, they learned quickly that charging for content online worked nowhere near as well as selling the print. Most content is now free. The print to internet shift remains one of the biggest issues facing newspapers today.
So the question I post to people is this: what businesses can you think of that successfully took a physical product, and managed to switch their customer base to online content instead? I can't think of any. The only successful internet content peddlers that I can think of are the ones that started on the internet and catered to the internet. iTunes has been successful at selling digital music. RPGnow has been successful at selling pdfs. But they were born on the internet, not transplanted there.
Please do not turn this thread into a WotC bashing thread. My aim is to discuss digital content in general, not just WotC. Also, please do not confuse internet stores like Amazon that sell a physical product with sellers of digital content.
I remember, many moons ago, when I used to read Zillions: Consumer Reports for Kids. Then, one day, I received a mailing saying that Zillions would only be available online, not in print. Of course, there would still be a charge for access. I didn't buy into it, and now you will find no reference to Zillions on www.consumerreports.org (at least, none that I can find).
I also remember a concept that They Might Be Giants came up with to sell content online. After a couple of mildly successful attempts at online-only albums, they announced a project to open up super exlusive content online to people for about $150 a year. It promised new, rare, and previously unreleased content on a monthly basis as an alternative to releasing the content on CD. I know people that justified it, saying it was the same cost as buying a new album a month. For the first couple of months things were okay, but by the end they were releasing less and less, and most tracks were things that could already be found on previous releases, and most buyers had lost faith. After one year, it was discontinued. To this day, the only internet TMBG album I own is the Long Tall Weekend album, which I purchased when I also got a real CD copy along with the soft copy.
I remember when the Chicago Tribune first went online, and sent out mailers to customers advertising that they could now access the paper online, but for a fee. As with most papers, they learned quickly that charging for content online worked nowhere near as well as selling the print. Most content is now free. The print to internet shift remains one of the biggest issues facing newspapers today.
So the question I post to people is this: what businesses can you think of that successfully took a physical product, and managed to switch their customer base to online content instead? I can't think of any. The only successful internet content peddlers that I can think of are the ones that started on the internet and catered to the internet. iTunes has been successful at selling digital music. RPGnow has been successful at selling pdfs. But they were born on the internet, not transplanted there.
Please do not turn this thread into a WotC bashing thread. My aim is to discuss digital content in general, not just WotC. Also, please do not confuse internet stores like Amazon that sell a physical product with sellers of digital content.
