We are expecting the delivery of a couple of iPads in the next day or so.  As a result, I’ve been poking around the iPad app stores looking for some content for  the wonderful device that we anticipate receiving.  Mr. Murdoch has said that the iPad will be the savior of print media as we know it.  That’s good because I like to read my newspaper without a keyboard in front of me.

Unfortunately, when I look at the free apps for the Wall Street Journal, Popular Science, Newsweek and others, I find negative reviews galore.  It seems that these publications charge nearly as much or more for the iPad edition as they do for the old school print version.  Not very green of them.

Now we understand that there’s programming involved in getting it on the iPad, but we doubt that it’s as difficult as the old cold type versions of newspapers we see in western movies.  So, why exactly are the iPad versions so expensive?

In the first place “free” is not a sustainable model. That is presuming you would like professional journalists doing their jobs being objective, investigative and unbiased.  (Hoy, that’s a whole different discussion)  So regardless of our desire for free, it can’t happen long term.  A Wall Street Journal on the iPad has every cost associated with the collection, gathering and writing of information as does the tree killing old school version that I know and love.  What it loses is the production, printing and delivery costs.  It adds a cost from Apple.

From a revenue point of view, we may be buying in-depth advertising rather than a quarter page.  So the cost of the ad will depend on what’s behind the first photo and how deep the content is that can be explored by the reader.  Hard to understand for a medium with ink under its finger nails.

It maybe even harder for internet savvy readers to understand why they should pay for content.  Enter the Drudge Tax.  The Drudge Tax is an idea floated by the FTC that would tax news aggregators like the Drudge Report for using/stealing content paid for by the traditional media and then channel some of that tax back to newspapers.  That is after the bureaucrats take their cut.  Consumerists are up in arms saying that 74% of consumers are against that tax.  Duh?  Who wants to end free?

The point is good content is not free or even cheap.  And while blogs, facebook and twitter have made us all publishers of some sort, the quality of what we collectively publish is highly suspect.  Except of course for What’s New at ZLRIGNTION which is beyond reproach.

Good content should be a competitive advantage for traditional media turned digital and it should not be free.  Nor should any Tom, Dick or Drudge be able to cheapen the value by violating copyrights of the creators of the content.  Believe me these news aggregators are making their money for doing little more than linking to traditional media outlets.

So when our iPads come in, we’ll pay for the Journal, the New York Times, Wired Magazine and all the others and hope quality journalism never dies even if its currently on life support.