Paywalls and the demand for news

Given the preponderance of free content on the Internet, news media organizations face new challenges over how to manage access to and the pricing of their content. It is unclear whether content should be free or whether customers should pay via a “paywall.” We use experimental variation from a media publisher’s field test of paywalls to examine demand for online news across several local media markets. We find a 51% drop in visits after the introduction of a paywall and a far larger drop for younger readers.