Are publishers waking up from their dream about apps?

When Apple’s iPad arrived on the scene in 2010, many magazine and newspaper publishers saw it as a gift from the gods: a chance to turn back the clock and convince consumers to pay for their content in a new form. But for many, that dream has given way to the cruel reality that apps are at best a stop-gap measure, not a dramatic new business model. As MIT Technology Review editor and publisher Jason Pontin points out — in a post about why his magazine has decided to kill its app — the benefits don’t outweigh the negatives for both readers and publishers. It’s a lesson that some other content producers might want to consider.
The iPad — and the content economy that Apple created along with it, thanks to iTunes and more recent additions like the Newsstand — was alluring for many publishers because they believed it could overcome what they saw as the “original sin” of not charging for their digital content in the first place. It seemed like the perfect solution: a device that would replicate the magazine or newspaper experience in digital form, with Apple handling all of the annoying back-end details around payment. As Pontin describes it:

"Publishers believed that because they were once again delivering a unique, discrete product, analogous to a newspaper or magazine, they could charge readers for single-copy sales and even subscriptions, re-educating audiences that publications were goods for which they must pay."

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