If everything’s going to be free then a lot of it will be rubbish.

The FT's MD,Rob Grimshaw has defended his papers business model for paid content.

The paper launched a system whereby anyone could download 5 articles for free and another 30 if they registered for free.The result,it has increased its registered users but not so far its paying subscribers.

He has though defended this model,

There seems to be a prevailing view out there that there must be purity in business models on the web - that it must be all pay-for or all free - and any effort to marry the two is an offence to the purity of the web environment.”

reports Paid Content

I particularly like his comment

If everything’s going to be free then a lot of it will be rubbish.”

But Grimshaw is convinced that his model will work.

The conclusion that we’ve come to is that, if we want to move forward, then we need to find a way to do two things tog - make money from our content (it’s great content, we should never be ashamed of putting a value on it) and make money from advertising. We don’t see any reason why you can’t do the two things together.

And cites the Ryanair model that those who pay £100 for a seat will be as satisfied as those who pay £500.

Just a reminder that the FT group saw its profits rise 21% and its income rise 11% in the year to March 2008.It must be doing something right