Survey Finds Few Pay for Once Free Web Sites: "About 17 percent of Internet users surveyed have been asked to pay to access Web sites they used to see for free, according to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Of those, however, only 12 percent have agreed to pay for access. The rest decide to stop getting that content or service from an online source, the Pew study says."

12% of 17% make a 2.04% conversion rate, which is usually considered rather effective by direct marketing standards.

As a side note, the web is a difficult place to link to. This Reuters story served by Yahoo will likely expire, so I chose Excite which doesn't look like a long-term choice either, does it? Caching systems such as Google's or Wayback Machine might find a way to charge users who want to avoid ghost sites and linkrot.

04/11/02 update: both Excite and Yahoo's links are dead. Linkrot is one of the plagues that hurt the web's credibility as a fee-based platform.