This time next year, you may have to pay for the privilege – at least on sites owned by News Corp. Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp said this week that News Corp, which lost $203 million last quarter, plans to charge for their websites by next year.

The reason: "Quality journalism is not cheap and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting."

Although readers have shown they are willing to spend money to read financial or other high quality or specialized content online, it remains to be seen whether they'll pay to read what they can find in their daily paper or see on TV. Consumers are used to getting a wealth of information and news on the web for free. Heck, some want their free content to be free of advertising, too.

What most consumers don't see and don't think about, of course, are the hard costs for producing the information they want for free. There's the cost of employees to write, and edit the free content, to design websites, put the free content on the website, and answer incoming calls and email. Then, of course, there's the cost of all the payroll taxes on those employees' salaries.

There's no paper stock to pay for online, but there are hard costs for web servers, software, web server maintenance, and backups. Rent, office supplies, and utilities are all part of the cost of putting content online, too.

Those real costs of producing news – combined with a decline in print advertising and a whole host of other factors – have other companies eying paid online content, too. The Media News Group has indicated it expects to charge for online content, and the NY Times has indicated it wants to explore “a new online financial strategy.”

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