[Swprograms] Re: NYTimes: Newspapers contemplating charging for onlineaccess

[Joe Buch <joseph.buch@xxxxxxx>]

At 01:02 PM 3/14/05 -0500, Richard Cuff wrote:
>However, if the trend is indeed to increasingly charge for content, this
>changes the competitive landscape and means I might spend more time
>listening and less time reading.
>

As I understand it the cost of chopping down trees, shredding them, hauling the paper from Canada, keeping the presses oiled, and distributing the paper to customers, news stands, and machines, including the profit margin of each of the vendors along the way is just about covered by the sale price of the printed paper.

The cost to gather and assemble the news and reward the stockholders is covered by the advertising revenue.  So maybe the printed paper has reached a point in time where it should devolve like the wireline telephone is doing.  The news media should not make internet readers subsidize the price of paper and ink any more than wireless customers should subsidize the decaying land-line telephone infrastructure.  If they try, readers will just flip to those who provide news content for free.  

It is too easy to go buy a nice hat, print a sign that says PRESS to stick above the brim, and do a Matt Drudge imitation.  The cost of entry into doing internet-distributed news is so low by comparison to print that I would expect many more electronic competitors would jump on the bandwagon if the print media started charging for their bits.

I wonder if the Wall Street Journal has released any information on how their pay-as-you-click service is doing?  I don't subscribe to either edition and seem to survive.  With the progress of portable players and sand-based memory, it will soon be possible to download the text of the morning news to your player while your coffee brews and listen to the news stories you want to hear as you commute to work using a text to voice synthesizer.  No need for radio either; no need to ravage the forests.  The only real question is what will the Brits use to wrap their fish?


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Joe Buch
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