Gruber on Charging for Access to News Sites

John Gruber on why news organizations continue to try and force pay walls to work:

And it’s not really surprising that they’re failing to evolve. The decision-makers — the executives sitting atop large non-editorial management bureaucracies — are exactly the people who need to go if newspapers are going to remain profitable.

Upton Sinclair’s adage comes to mind: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

A good point and one that probably rings true in more industries than just news. Vertical hierarchies no longer make sound business strategies.