Why did the website subscription cost?
Article ca. 2001
A web site is a publishing venture.
It offers economies over the 19th century models in that it doesn't require printing and distribution of paper.
Advantages
Lower manufacturing cost
Lower distribution cost
More environmentally friendly
However, does this mean there is no cost in e-publishing?
Not so - there are significant technical, service and labour costs incurred.
Service Costs
Web hosting and security.
Bandwidth - the website owner pays for each page, image and video viewed by readers.
Legal and accounting costs.
Labour costs
Editorial
Journalists
Technical experts
Graphic artists
Web programmers
Marketing
Customer service
Like print publishing, e-publishing may be a small scale effort or large scale effort. It may be specialist or generalist in focus. Each publication will have different standards of presentation and editorial.