No more room at the inn

A parable of digital journalism economics

Once upon a time, about twenty-five years ago, a local entrepreneur built a digital bed & breakfast on the Internet.

Slowly, people started visiting. But most would come for the free breakfast and not stay overnight in any of the four rooms.

To pay the mortgage, the owner leased the rooms to out-of-town brokers guaranteeing top rates and high occupancy. They in turn sold the space as timeshares.

Soon the rooms were full, but the rent was lower than expected. So the owner added more rooms to make up the difference.

Over time business grew, but the locals who had been coming for breakfast started to complain. It was impossible to count, but there seemed to be thousands of timeshare owners and they were obnoxious. There were noise complaints, litter everywhere, crowded hallways and health code violations galore.

It was difficult to police the issue as no one — not the owner, not the brokers — knew who was staying in the rooms. And, as long as the bills were being paid, no one asked too many questions.

The owner continued to cook a great breakfast every day, but to get to the dining room you had to sign up for the menu by email and walk past the noise, litter and congestion in the hall.

Eventually the publisher decided to put up a paywall, pivot back to focusing on local readers, and wondered why few people were willing to pay for the privilege.