To repeat what I said on Twitter, I've been downloading iPad apps in anticipation of getting one tomorrow - it's like decorating the nursery before the baby actually arrives. One of the apps that piques my interest: The Wall Street Journal. It's one of the first papers to have an iPad app ready to roll. It's $17.29 per month, or almost twice the cost of the introductory subscription offer, $9.92 a month. Reading the comments makes my head hurt:

* Why shuld I pay for this it's too much when I get news free everywhere else FAIL

* Murdock dines on small diced pieces of babies deep-fried in palm oil

* As a loyal reader I am upset that I have to pay more for this app. I already pay for the newspaper version and the iPhone app. I do not understand why I should have to pay a higher price to get the product on the IPad.

--> reply: So don't

* I would never pay this much for a newspaper they should give it away and then make money on ads oh yeah is there an feature in the iPad that disables ads because I hates me some ads

And so on. Some reasonable voices point out that the WSJ is a premium product, and that the digital side of the operation needs some beefy revenue streams to offset costs elsewhere, and make digital look shiny and lucrative. But it is a shock: pay for content? On the web?

I will. For one thing, I've been dreaming of this day: a magazine or newspaper or book on a device that isn't a computer. But you can get them on an iPhone! Yes. But A) you must be connected to the internet - hence the term "online version," you know - and B) reading newspapers on an iPhone is like viewing in front of one of Raphael's enormous paintings in the Vatican apartments while you're standing one inch away from it. Which means you've slipped past the barricade, and Swiss Guards will be wrestling you to the floor any minute. The idea of sitting in a coffee shop, reading a digital newspaper, turning the page without waiting for the copy to load because there are seventeen other people in the cafe downloading torrents of Avatar, is nice.

But here's the problem: throwing the copies away. I hope I'll be able to get back issues, because then I can trash papers from last month without a care. Right now all the paper versions go out on recycling day, and I never look back. But if you have any tendencies towards digital packratty behavior, you will find yourself archiving everything, just in case. One more thing to sort, tag, back up, and burn to discs.

Probably not. Magazines I'll probably keep, because you never finish a mag. Newspapers are fishwrap the next day, and the digital versions will have the same aroma. Can't wait until there's a Strib version, even though we'll still subscribe. My wife likes the paper version of the paper, as does my nine-year-old daughter. "Why do you want an iPad anyway?" she asks. "It's just a big iPhone."

This from a kid who lives on her computer, taught herself layers in Photoshop and animates cartoons in iMovie. You're just jealous, I say.

"It just seems like a waste of money."

I give my wife a look: is this your doing? Because we can start talking about shoes. If you really want to go there.