This thesis examines the willingness to pay among readers of Danish online news providers. In an online survey, respondents are asked whether they pay, whether they intent to pay in the future and why they have decided to pay or not to pay. Furthermore, the respondents are asked to consider, which types of content and presentations of the news that would make them more likely to pay for online news, and they are asked questions regarding their opinion about the prices for online news as well.The questionnaire is supplemented by interviews with few of the respondents to answer further, what the users think about the paywalls as a whole, why they have decided to pay or not to pay and what could change their willingness to pay.Overall, quite few respondents have paid for online news so far, but a reasonably larger group is considering paying in the future. The biggest reason not to pay is the possibilities to find similar news and articles for free on other websites, as well as the fact that the respondents are not ready to pay for something, they could get for free in the past. Throughout the examinations, the majority of the respondents and interviewees ask for more unique articles as well as more in-depth articles to compete with the free options. As the thesis shows, the news medias still have a task in hand to develop their products even more, and simple tasks such as informing about the difference between paid articles and the rest is still a major issue that the media will have to deal with if they want further future success with the paywalls. All in all though, there is a reason to be optimistic, as the willingness to pay for digital content overall is growing, and it might just be a matter of time before the main part of news consumers are used to paying for online news, if only the news providers are able to keep developing their content to stand out from what has been – and is being – given away for free.
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