3 ms·

A subscription to the New York Times costs $769.60 per year. A good chunk of that is printing and delivery costs for something I don't want anyway: a giant stac

by wooster 16y ago

A subscription to the New York Times costs $769.60 per year. A good chunk of that is printing and delivery costs for something I don't want anyway: a giant stack of physical paper. On top of the odd environmental disconnect of shipping a whole tree's worth of paper to each individual customer in tiny chunks every day over a year, there's the disconnect of customers paying to have advertising delivered to them. How they expect people to pay for that in a world where I can read their best articles online for free is totally beyond me. What I would like to see is: - An iPad version of the full paper (not just the selections they have now). - No advertising. - A price reflective of the reduced printing and delivery costs. I don't want to subsidize the physical paper subscriptions of other people. - Fast search and access to the archives from within the iPad app. Then again, as long as the web site remains free (although hobbled by advertising and splitting articles across pages), I doubt the iPad app would get much traction. You never know though. Also, with all that said, I don't live in New York. For my local paper (the San Francisco Chronicle) to warrant me subscribing, they'd need to start doing some real journalism. For example, they could look at the city and state government. In a budget crisis, you'd think there would be plenty of material to use. The milquetoast reporting they currently practice isn't worth any of my money.

psyklic 16y ago
You're telling the papers to: (1) Get rid of their largest revenue stream (advertising), and (2) Increase spending (more reporters). How does that work?
- Groxx 16y ago
  By (3) reducing costs by eliminating the need for a massive amount of the company. I'd be surprised beyond belief if it turns out they paid their reporting wing of the company more than they (collectively) paid their printing and distribution wings. And remember that the distribution includes all shipments US / worldwide, and all end-point delivery people.
- wooster 16y ago
  I'm telling them to get rid of their biggest cost: printing and distribution. Also, I'm not saying they should get rid of the classifieds section, which is a big chunk (about half? hard to find any data on it) of their advertising income. As for reporters: they're cheap. In the range of $40-100k (from quick Google search) a year for a New York Times reporter. Much less at other papers. Hire 10 reporters to dig into corruption, waste, and fraud in San Francisco and I'd be happy to plunk down a subscription fee.
  - Tichy 16y ago
    "Hire 10 reporters to dig into corruption, waste, and fraud" Isn't that actually the job of the police?
    - rabidgnat 16y ago
      The police investigates crimes that have already been observed. Journalists have the freedom to investigate potential crimes based on their gut feeling. Recall Enron - a police officer standing anywhere in Headquarters would have missed a crime. However, some pesky reporters asking too many questions brought the whole operation to its knees.
    - mikecane 16y ago
      >>>Isn't that actually the job of the police? What? No. Police are not investigators. They are there to arrest -- or use force -- period. They are intake and barriers, not processing.
  - rbrcurtis 16y ago
    I used to believe that the IT department at my work didn't need more than 10 programmers.
drinian 16y ago
I agree with you, except perhaps on the "no advertising" bit. Advertising often serves a useful purpose in a community. How to translate to the Web, I'm not sure.
tinio 16y ago
For an alternative news source in the Bay Area, take a look at http://www.baycitizen.org http://www.baycitizen.org
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
rwl 16y ago
I agree with you; ads and distribution costs are killing the newspapers. I used to subscribe to the Sunday NY Times, but found that I wasn't reading most of it, and I got sick of flipping over multiple-page ads in the parts that I did want to read. Now I get the SF Chronicle on the weekends, which is significantly cheaper, but still full of a lot of ads and flyers that I don't want to see. (As an aside: I am under 25.) Unlike you, I actually enjoy having the physical paper, and would prefer to read it in that format over a screen. (Of course, it's still nice to have the digital version available, for search -- but I don't do that very much.) I would even be willing to pay a bit more for a physical paper without ads in it. I wrote a post a while ago about how the newspapers might keep their print business going without relying so much on print ads. It's here: http://whereofwecannotspeak.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/how-to-save-the-newspapers-yet-another-proposal/ http://whereofwecannotspeak.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/how-to-...

by wooster 16y ago

psyklic 16y ago

You're telling the papers to: (1) Get rid of their largest revenue stream (advertising), and (2) Increase spending (more reporters). How does that work?

Groxx 16y ago
By (3) reducing costs by eliminating the need for a massive amount of the company. I'd be surprised beyond belief if it turns out they paid their reporting wing of the company more than they (collectively) paid their printing and distribution wings. And remember that the distribution includes all shipments US / worldwide, and all end-point delivery people.
wooster 16y ago
I'm telling them to get rid of their biggest cost: printing and distribution. Also, I'm not saying they should get rid of the classifieds section, which is a big chunk (about half? hard to find any data on it) of their advertising income. As for reporters: they're cheap. In the range of $40-100k (from quick Google search) a year for a New York Times reporter. Much less at other papers. Hire 10 reporters to dig into corruption, waste, and fraud in San Francisco and I'd be happy to plunk down a subscription fee.
- Tichy 16y ago
  "Hire 10 reporters to dig into corruption, waste, and fraud" Isn't that actually the job of the police?
  - rabidgnat 16y ago
    The police investigates crimes that have already been observed. Journalists have the freedom to investigate potential crimes based on their gut feeling. Recall Enron - a police officer standing anywhere in Headquarters would have missed a crime. However, some pesky reporters asking too many questions brought the whole operation to its knees.
  - mikecane 16y ago
    >>>Isn't that actually the job of the police? What? No. Police are not investigators. They are there to arrest -- or use force -- period. They are intake and barriers, not processing.
- rbrcurtis 16y ago
  I used to believe that the IT department at my work didn't need more than 10 programmers.

drinian 16y ago

I agree with you, except perhaps on the "no advertising" bit. Advertising often serves a useful purpose in a community. How to translate to the Web, I'm not sure.

tinio 16y ago

For an alternative news source in the Bay Area, take a look at http://www.baycitizen.org http://www.baycitizen.org

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

rwl 16y ago

I agree with you; ads and distribution costs are killing the newspapers. I used to subscribe to the Sunday NY Times, but found that I wasn't reading most of it, and I got sick of flipping over multiple-page ads in the parts that I did want to read. Now I get the SF Chronicle on the weekends, which is significantly cheaper, but still full of a lot of ads and flyers that I don't want to see. (As an aside: I am under 25.) Unlike you, I actually enjoy having the physical paper, and would prefer to read it in that format over a screen. (Of course, it's still nice to have the digital version available, for search -- but I don't do that very much.) I would even be willing to pay a bit more for a physical paper without ads in it. I wrote a post a while ago about how the newspapers might keep their print business going without relying so much on print ads. It's here: http://whereofwecannotspeak.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/how-to-save-the-newspapers-yet-another-proposal/ http://whereofwecannotspeak.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/how-to-...