In ‘Cracking the online news code’, June 2, Vanita Kohli-Khandekar says the entire model of pricing will now change and that newspapers will begin to charge online users. This may happen in the developed world, but India is different. If Indian newspapers have managed to do well even while reducing prices, why should the model on the Internet be different? If we can pay one or two rupees a day to get newspapers, why should we pay any more for news on the Net?
This is the same model that works in the case of cable TV — very low cost to consumers is balanced by advertising revenues on the cable networks. In any case, people are reading less and less of newspapers.
Usha Mahajan, New Delhi
