Sometimes the brightest people can come off as completely clueless and say the strangest things. This week’s winner goes to Aaron Wall at SEOBook about how a company could try to make money by limiting the number of people who can freely see buzz-worthy items, and then later charge people for it.

I predict that if that limited syndication model is available to the masses, a future media pricing system will allow publishers to offer free video for the first X views and then the videos are turned to private / members only / payment required after they get a certain number of views. All the free views build the perceived social value, while being easy to market since the content is originally free.

Now, I have to admit I already have a bias in that the Internet will be free and always open as people can create content for prestige or attention that in turn can lead to a job or money elsewhere.

So, what’s the problem then with the idea of a limited syndication model? Simple: you are already giving out something for free–which means anyone can pick it up and freely distribute it elsewhere. Therefore, the minute you remove it into a private/paid area, every new person then goes to another website that is still displaying it, thereby driving down the price of what you can make with something behind a wall (hence why the New York Times finally opened itself up–the money to be made through traffic was far greater than the subscription revenue it generated behind a wall that was leaked elsewhere around the web).

In the same way, I feel that online subscriptions are a joke unless it offers information that is extremely unique and cannot be distributed elsewhere. Sure, it may take me a couple days to find what I need, but once I have done so, I no longer need to continue to continually pay for information I now have for free. Yes, it cost me some time, but with the right researching abilities, then the initial cost of my time is not nearly as high as a continual payment of cash.

So, how does this then affect the word of mouth strategy? Quite poorly really, people hear about a great product or video, try to see it and get frustrated when they have to sign up they will just quickly go elsewhere in their busy lives. Then, the minute another word of mouth campaign comes up about a site that does not hide their content and takes the content hidden from elsewhere leaving it open, they will just permanently go there instead. Sure the site will only last as long as the other sites keep hiding their content as it is not generating unique content, but this is the same way as paid links work–as long as Google continues to erroneously think that linking popularity is relevance for SERPs, the free market will be there to exploit a niche.