In my third post for INMA’s Tech Trends blog, I revisit my past skepticism around the hard paywall. My past assumptions around the superiority of the metered model, rested on its ability to extract subs rev from loyalists, while protecting page views and visits, thereby enabling monetization through ads. But in a world where news consumption is rapidly moving to mobile, typically much harder to monetize for news publishers, and the bloat in ad volumes leading to a drop in CPMs, thus making a mockery of ad growth projections for publishers, it doesnt make sense to rely on the metered model anymore. Publishers, even those with monthly uniques of 10-20m, now need to approach online advertising the way owners of luxury or niche brands approach advertisers – sell on engagement and time spent, not reach. So it really doesnt matter if your paywall leads to a drop in audience numbers, as long as the ones who visit the site are spending more time. Hence, the case for the hard paywall. More on this at the INMA site. Read here.