comradity

So, we're both saying that publishers' pricing is driven by the latter of "the maximum the buyer is willing to pay....& the minimum the seller is willing to sell at..."

But we disagree as to why. You say the marketplace is too competitive or monopolistic. I'd say it is because publishers are B2B (business to business) and not B2C (business to consumer).

I am not referring to just existing publishers, so suction cups for the dead is not entirely accurate. The competitive opportunity for new entrants as well as to turnaround existing publishers is (now positively rephrased): Be a B2C business, market directly to consumers, immerse yourself in what your consumers think your product is worth and what they will pay for it.

For media, an investment in a B2C model starts to generate revenues sooner than the B2B model. Because, in the media B2B model, the audience has to be built before making dollar one from advertisers, distributors, merchandise licensees, etc. Therefore B2B is the more "wishful thinking" model of the two.

I got the point exactly. You are assuming that the unit price and number of units garnered by the publishing industry reflects consumer demand. This is only true if the industry has used best practices in pricing and marketing strategy. I disagree with that assumption.

As a former media planner, it appears that the publishing industry has been focused on generating revenues from advertisers. Period. But more concrete evidence of publishers' lack of marketing best practices is that publishers keep talking about selling content. Tide does not sell laundry soap. They sell superior clean. The value to the consumer can be very high or even priceless. For example, the value of getting the red wine stain out of that expensive tablecloth is very high, the value of being confident the kids look like their mom cares is priceless.

Publishers need to stop taking marketing short cuts (giving away free copies, relying 3rd parties to sell subscriptions, reacting to social marketing, and buying into marketing gurus with silver bullet answers).

Dear Paul Graham,

We can argue about whose got better content all night long.

However,the value of the content to the consumer is worth more than the words themselves. How does the content improve their lives - look smarter at a cocktail party, transform an otherwise mind-numbing train ride, decide what stock to buy, pick up a girl at a bar, break the ice at the beginning of a cold call with a sales prospect. What is all that worth?

Have publishers charged enough? Has publisher marketing take advantage of this added value to generate more subscriptions? How much more value can be added with the interactivity and immediacy of new technologies and how publishers harvest and use this information to convince consumers to pay more.

By the way, I wonder how many people told Steve Jobs that no one would pay for I-Tunes? I'd bet it was many.

Katherine Warman Kern @comradity