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T A B L E__T A L K

Is NT superior to Windows 95? Discuss Microsoft's less-touted OS in the Digital Culture area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

The bleeding edge
By Jenn Shreve
When it comes to creative Web marketing, tampon manufacturers lead the way
(03/18/98)

eMate never had a chance
By Dylan Tweney
Why did Apple consign a kooky little portable computer to an early death?
(03/17/98)

Let's Get This Straight
By Scott Rosenberg
R.I.P., Word -- but don't get out your handkerchiefs for "content"
(03/16/98)

The Minor league
By Tom McNichol
Can Halsey Minor's "user-driven" publishing empire, CNET, make him the Internet's Ted Turner?
(03/13/98)

Fending off big brother
By Andrew Leonard
Cryptography fans take on the surveillance state in "Privacy on the Line"
(03/12/98)

BROWSE THE ARCHIVES FOR LET'S GET THIS STRAIGHT

As Slate goes, so goes ... Slate

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BY SCOTT ROSENBERG | The punditry has been flying thick and fast over Slate's move last week to close its doors to all but paying subscribers. In this week's Time, for instance, Richard Zoglin asks, "Is Slate Worth Paying For?" Business Week's Steve Hamm had previously asked an almost identical question: "Would You Pay to Read Slate?"

It sounds like a reasonable enough query, but it largely misses the point. Most people feel like they're already paying for Slate, the Microsoft-funded magazine edited by Michael Kinsley -- along with the rest of what they read online. Journalists, ensconced in offices with fast Net connections paid for by their companies, too easily forget that most of the general public is forking over at least $20 a month -- and in many areas, considerably more -- for Internet access.

The additional $20 a year that Slate now demands is hardly a budget-breaking amount. But if you feel that you're already spending $240 annually for the Net, you might not be eager to start piling up surcharges.

The subscription drive that preceded Slate's March 9 gate-closing netted the magazine 17,000 subscribers -- not bad at all. But at $20 a head, that's only a drop in the bucket toward meeting what an analyst in Business Week estimated to be a $5 million annual budget.

Meanwhile, by "closing the gate" Slate has decimated its circulation, making it almost impossible to earn revenue from advertising (unsurprisingly, everywhere you look in Slate today, the ads are from Microsoft itself). Even Bill Gates, the man who is ultimately footing the Slate bill, spoke skeptically about the magazine's prospects earlier this month: "I love Slate, but everyone who's going to subscriptions has had a very tough time," Gates said in a talk at the New York Public Library, as reported in the Netly News.

N E X T_P A G E | If it's so "tough," why is Slate closing the gate?