Should You Pay to Read The Globe and Mail?

TheGlobeandMail.com and GlobeInvestor.com Are No Longer Free

First Published Date: November 7, 2012 ADawnJournal.com

Blaming its declining ad revenues, Globe and Mail recently started charging online readers accessing more than 10 articles per month for $19.99 monthly. I have been a religious Globe and Mail reader for a long time and have been contemplating whether to pay for online access or not – and I am sure the majority of online readers are in the same boat as me. Today, I will discuss whether to pay or not to pay to read Globe and Mail online.

Free access to information or knowledge is a basic human right. Free access to information serves as the basic foundation to develop and build a better society – a society better in every aspect: economically, culturally, and technologically. The Internet opens up endless possibilities to access free information across the globe. However, in the name of declining revenues, free access to information has severely been compromised by publishers around the globe. And the recent Canadian version is the Globe and Mail’s restriction.

Now let’s come to the question of whether you should pay or not to read the Globe and Mail online? Unfortunately, there is no straightforward answer. The answer lies in how you value the Globe and Mail content. If you feel it is worth it to pay $20 a month to have full access, you can pay to read. If you think there are still so many other sites available for free and there is no point paying $20 per month, you know what to do.

$20 per month may not seem like a lot of money. However, if you consider the gross amount you need to earn to spend $20 per month annually (considering you are in a 40 percent tax bracket), it comes to $400 gross amount per year. Are you willing to spend $400 gross yearly to read one site? I am not. When I first heard the news that the Globe and Mail will be a paid site and the figures were not published yet, I thought to myself that if it’s $10 a month, I am willing to pay. If not, I won’t.  

There are many other sites you can still read for free. I am mentioning a few of them here. Search online for more and I am sure you will come up with at least one or two that you would like to read instead of the paid Globe and Mail.