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That's because with only the Guardian that I can think of offhand as exception, media seems to think the "right" price to pay for a web site subscription is abo
by NeedMoreTea 8y ago
That's because with only the Guardian that I can think of offhand as exception, media seems to think the "right" price to pay for a web site subscription is about the same as you might pay for a paper delivered 365 days. Newspapers seem to have increased cost far in excess of inflation.
Seem to remember (this could be very fallible) I was paying around 50p for a Guardian or Telegraph in the 90s and early 00s. Tabloids might have been 25p or 30p. £1 and up feels far too much for a paper, even now.
Obviously we've all adjusted how we read as well. Instead of taking everything from one site we might graze half a dozen sites for news, and a full subscription might feel too much for any of them. The few lite subscriptions I've looked at didn't feel that light.
- schrodinger 8y agoFYI 50p in 1990 is 94p today adjusted for inflation
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoYet the actual papers are about £2 now.
- pas 8y agoThe NYT (1EUR / week), WaPo (1.5-2.25 USD / week), Guardian (6-7 USD / week) are constantly updated, multiple times every day, how many actual papers does that equal?
- Reason077 8y agoIn the old print days, subscriptions (or the cover price) only covered a small part of a publication’s costs. Perhaps just enough to cover printing and distribution, if that. The majority of print revenue always came from advertising - a revenue stream that is apparantly drying up in the online era.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoYup, and it was much more benign. No tracking. Whole supplements you could skip if you weren't looking for a new car or holiday. Take more interest when you're thinking of decorating or kitchen replacement.
- mledu 8y agoActually for many newspapers in the US the classifieds were a major revenue contributor.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]