Information Wants to Be Free (or Does It?): "Time magazine can charge $3.95 per print copy, but it won't find users willing to pay that much per month for access to its Web edition. Time's online users might be quite willing to pay $0.25 per month. Likewise, users of The End of Free -- the incongruously free content Web log about the end of free content online -- might not be willing to pay $5 per month for access, but they may be willing to pay $0.10. The problem for Time and The End of Free are the service fees that MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and even PayPal charge to process $0.25 or $0.10 transactions. The fees are larger than the transactions themselves. [...] If you're a content provider or publisher stymied by the inability to sell at new, lower prices users are willing to pay for information, what do you do? You withdraw from online or find ways to make your content intrinsically more valuable."

Emphasis mine. I've been thinking about adding a premium service to our site, if only to relieve some of the irony associated with its domain name! Don't worry, the weblog as it is now will remain free. The question is, what can I put into a fee-based service that's not already available for free (here and elsewhere,) and that will add real value to customers? I started working on a database of categorized articles and companies that could serve as the basis of a linkrot-free, easy to browse and search paying site. Is that enough to be compelling, I don't know yet (and in the meantime I use the database for other work.)

Leveraging what's unique to the web (e.g. powerful search/browse capacities that you can't have on paper,) is probably a start, though it's not necessarily enough to turn any site into an essential. If there's something you'd expect from a potential "TheEndOfFree Pro" to help you do your job or research, and that you'd be willing to pay for, let me know.