Paying for content and the great password problem

fluffynotes:

Pat Kiernan has an interesting take on the New York Times’s official announcement that they’ll start charging frequent users to access online content starting in 2011. And that is related to the endless “passwordization” of our lives in a digital world.

By going the road alone instead of opting to use something like the collaborative pay system marketed by Steven Brill of Journalism Online, the Times is guaranteeing regular readers the inconvenience of dealing with yet another account name and password. The iTunes model that Brill advocates is something the Times, as well as the rest of the industry, needs to consider.

Perhaps the answer to the problem news organizations are facing over paying for content lies in a failsafe password protection program (chip implanted in your brain or fingertips?) that would keep you safe from identity thieves while never ever letting you forget your login for Gilt Groupe right when that last Marc Jacobs top is up for grabs and 70 percent off.

From Jen Doll

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I find this bolded section particularly interesting. I’m not worried about identity theives but the huge stretch of administration required for when people lose their passwords, log in from different computers, no doubt people will share their passwords and then be very upset to find they account has stalled.