Blogger and director of community engagement for a new Washington news operation TBD, Steve Buttry, recently took a look at the paywall around new Honolulu site Civil Beat.
He was surprised to see the $19.99 monthly charge to access content, when eBay founder Pierre Omidyar launched his new site. But while he thinks paid-for content models can be “foolish”, he also acknowledges that Omidyar knows a digital thing or two.
In this post (published on 4 June) he reviews the content behind the paywall. In the comments below, Civil Beat editor John Temple responds to some of his observations.