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Never one to miss an opportunity to be contrarian — although Andrew “I Hate The Internet” Keen has stolen much of his Prophet of Doom act — Nick Carr has a post about the New York Times’ subscription service, TimesSelect, in which he di
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1 year ago
This is, simply, an overstatement. You assume that all the news and comments that newspapers publish are fungible. That may, sadly, be the world the web will ultimately create, but it is not the world we have today.
What the research shows is that readers often value a particular newspaper, so if they can't get the stories online they will be more likely to purchase the print edition (or vice versa).
I find it odd that you, a newspaper writer, are so quick to assume that your own work is a fungible commodity. Perhaps you should give yourself - and your colleagues - more credit.
Nick
1 year ago
As for the fungible part, I give my colleagues plenty of credit -- in the fungibility sweepstakes, they stack up with the best of them -- but wishing that news content wasn't fungible won't make it so.
1 year ago
Indeed it will not, though I'm not clear I understand Nick's worries here. Simply from a *news* perspective wouldn't it be nice to have basic news come from many places and be a broadly practiced and fungible commodity item, while quality Op/Ed would move off of page x in the paper and onto the front page of good blogs like Nick's or this one? Yes we'd have cut out the capital intensive mega-publishers, but do they even invite you guys to their BBQs?
1 year ago
1 year ago
Before newspapers were online, readers were limited to their local and/or regional newspapers. Bringing newspapers online means opening the audience to a global group of readers, whether those newspapers are national, regional or local. That global group won't necessarily pay to subscribe, but if offered the opportunity to read what the NY Times, or Washington Post has to say at the source, would certainly do so and in the process, add to the revenue stream by virtue of their visit. These are NEW readers, readers who would not otherwise subscribe or contribute to the revenues of the paper.
BTW, the only paid online news subscription I have ever had is to the NY Times crosswords because I am an addict...and they're still behind that paywall. However, I feel justified in that subscription because NY Times crosswords are the hardest crosswords ever. It's an educational expense. :)