Bidding farewell to the blogosphere at One Herald Square. Boston Herald columnist and fellow blogger Cosmo Macero writes this morning that Herald publisher Pat Purcell is moving to a pay-as-you-go model if you want to read some of the paper's marquee columnists online -- including Macero.

I'm sympathetic. Free content is a backbreaking burden for daily newspapers -- especially a second read such as the Herald, many of whose readers may be looking for just two or three features. But this isn't going to work.

There may come a time when paying for online content will seem as natural as buying newspaper and magazine subscriptions. But until that day comes, anyone who tries to break from the pack and test the market is only going to get burned.

And from a selfish point of view, it's going to become nearly impossible for bloggers who take the Herald seriously, such as Jay Fitzgerald and me, to link to the paper's content.