People keep insisting that we're crazy to think that Rupert Murdoch is going down the wrong path with his paywall plans. I keep hearing from people saying "don't bet against Rupert -- he's the sharpest guy in the news business and he knows what he's doing." But I just can't see it. Not when he continues to say things that just aren't true. The latest, sent in by reader sinsi, involves yet another interview with Murdoch where he insists that once he puts up paywalls Google and Microsoft will be forced to stop linking to his stuff. Instead, he wants them to put up a subscription form:

"We'll be very happy if they just publish our headline or a sentence or two and that's followed by a subscription form,"

Ok, Rupert, how about you start? After all, we've pointed out that a ton of your own properties have news aggregators, and looking through them, not a single one appears to have subscription forms. Why not?

But, even more ridiculous, is his insistence that people will start paying:

"I think when they've got nowhere else to go they'll start paying,"

Not if but when. Recent profiles of Murdoch have suggested he doesn't use the web, so perhaps he doesn't realize it, but there's always somewhere else to go, and if News Corp. is so short-sighted to lock itself away from the open web, well that just opens up a much greater opportunity for his competitors to make sure they're the place to go.