Free boom on the Internet continues

 More and more media are making their online content available free of charge. For a few weeks now, users have been able to access the previously paid-for content of the British weekly newspaper Economist for free. CNN has also abandoned its fee-based strategy and now offers its films free of charge. The renowned New York Times and Wall Street Journal are also considering making their online content free (see and ). According to Focus, the change at these media companies could herald a radical change on the web or even the end of the culture of paying for exclusive content. This is because media are perceived more strongly online if their content is available free of charge. They are linked to, they are mentioned in blogs and they appear in Google news searches. Another reason for abandoning paid content is that readers will migrate to the competition if content costs money.
A study by the Frankfurt-based media consultancy Timelab predicts that paid content has no future in Germany either. According to the study, the main reason for this is that most media lack content that readers cannot find elsewhere on the web for free.