3 ms·

In the era before the internet, they had these printed things called “newspapers”, for which you had to pay money to read, and yet people of all classes of soci

In the era before the internet, they had these printed things called “newspapers”, for which you had to pay money to read, and yet people of all classes of society read them, and got good (indeed, significantly higher quality) news than we get today, and participated in democracy. So there’s some evidence that “having to pay for news” hardly makes news the domain of the elite few.

notacoward 7y ago
> they had these printed things called “newspapers” ..which were heavily subsidized, if not outright paid for, by ads.
- msbarnett 7y ago
  And? Newspapers still cost actual money, running $30+ a month at the newsstand. Paywalled newssites are routinely criticized for charging a fraction of that, and somehow there’s still handwringing that they’re suddenly “depriving the poor of news”
  - notacoward 7y ago
    ...and therefore, subscriptions do not replace ads. "Ads are evil, buy subscriptions" is the sentiment I was responding to, but it has a subtext that exclusion is OK. It's not OK when you're talking about it as an essential pillar of democracy. The entire voting populace needs access to that information. Ads can give them that, patronage can give them that, government support can give them that, subscriptions can't.
    - msbarnett 7y ago
      > "Ads are evil, buy subscriptions" is the sentiment I was responding to Neither the word “ad” nor “advertisement” nor any synonym appears in the post you responded to? What the post you responded to says is “If you get your news for free, you might well be the product“, which isn’t the same thing. If you read free news, monetizing you is all the income the organization is ever going to get. If, on the other hand, the organization is supported by a robust mix of sales and advertising, it is always going to have both the financial incentive and the financial wherewithal to resist advertisers’ demands to erode the editorial firewall. It’s only with the undermining of subscription revenue that we’ve seen the corrosiveness of being too dependent on advertising destroy editorial credibility. > Ads can give them that, patronage can give them that, government support can give them that, subscriptions can't. This is plainly contradicted by the fact that newspapers, which were a paid product sold at retail and by subscription and not routinely given away for free, were the primary mechanism by which the populace of the western world received news for over a century.
      - notacoward 7y ago
        > This is plainly contradicted No, it's not. Only 14 minutes elapsed between me pointing out that ads made it possible and you pretending that never happened. Is that a new gaslighting record? > It’s only with the undermining of subscription revenue That's the world we live in, and will live in for the foreseeable future, so my original questions still stand untouched by your diversions.
        msbarnett 7y ago
        > Only 14 minutes elapsed between me pointing out that ads made it possible and you pretending that never happened. I’m not “pretending it didn’t happen” Literally what I wrote is “If, on the other hand, the organization is supported by a robust mix of sales and advertising”. It’s you who has constructed a ridiculous false dichotomy in which people who are calling for a return of subscriptions must somehow oppose the presence of advertising to supplement sales, an argument neither I nor the person you originally responded to made. The history here is quite clear: Sales allowed organizations to sell advertising space while also maintaining enough editorial independence to please subscribers and deliver high quality journalism. “Free news”, solely supported by advertising, is a toxic mess where editorial firewalls are routinely nonexistent.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  > ..which were heavily subsidized, if not outright paid for, by ads. Ads, yes. Tracking? No. Not remotely similar to what is happening on the Internet right now. The problem isn't advertising; it is tracking. Targeted advertising is just a result of tracking.
  - Viliam1234 7y ago
    And if you start paying for an online newspaper, you will still be tracked. Actually, by subscribing you just made tracking you much easier.
    - Fnoord 7y ago
      A correct observation, unfortunately. Offline newspapers exist too. They are made of trees, need to be delivered by a minimum wage paperboy (who remembers the game Paperboy?), they lag a few hours to a day behind, and the fact you read that newspaper and pay for it electronically gives away something about you... But what it doesn't track is which articles you read. This is also a disadvantage of digital TV versus analog.
Broken_Hippo 7y ago
Well... yes and no. Not everyone could afford the newspaper on a regular basis, let alone a subscription (Which, where I lived, cost more than it did at the gas station). Regular newspapers were a luxury. You might have been lucky enough to read it at work, though. But you might be stuck with a local newspaper, which varies greatly in quality. One local newspaper was once a week, had no national or state-level news, was fraught with editorial mistakes, but was worth it if you wanted school news or yard sales. Many mid-level papers glossed over national and world news, were heavier on ads, and so on. You really needed to buy a major-city newspaper to stay informed. For me, what you could often find was the Indianapolis paper. Less commonly, the New York Times or even less commonly, the Chicago Tribune. Much more commonly, however, was local news on television. Televisions are one-time purchases after all and weren't that difficult to get with a tax refund check. The local news, if you had it, was definitely paid for by ads. And honestly, you only really got this news if you were able to watch it at the times it was on. Sure, they had 3 times a day with news, all of which coordinated with bankers hours.

notacoward 7y ago

> they had these printed things called “newspapers” ..which were heavily subsidized, if not outright paid for, by ads.

msbarnett 7y ago
And? Newspapers still cost actual money, running $30+ a month at the newsstand. Paywalled newssites are routinely criticized for charging a fraction of that, and somehow there’s still handwringing that they’re suddenly “depriving the poor of news”
- notacoward 7y ago
  ...and therefore, subscriptions do not replace ads. "Ads are evil, buy subscriptions" is the sentiment I was responding to, but it has a subtext that exclusion is OK. It's not OK when you're talking about it as an essential pillar of democracy. The entire voting populace needs access to that information. Ads can give them that, patronage can give them that, government support can give them that, subscriptions can't.
  - msbarnett 7y ago
    > "Ads are evil, buy subscriptions" is the sentiment I was responding to Neither the word “ad” nor “advertisement” nor any synonym appears in the post you responded to? What the post you responded to says is “If you get your news for free, you might well be the product“, which isn’t the same thing. If you read free news, monetizing you is all the income the organization is ever going to get. If, on the other hand, the organization is supported by a robust mix of sales and advertising, it is always going to have both the financial incentive and the financial wherewithal to resist advertisers’ demands to erode the editorial firewall. It’s only with the undermining of subscription revenue that we’ve seen the corrosiveness of being too dependent on advertising destroy editorial credibility. > Ads can give them that, patronage can give them that, government support can give them that, subscriptions can't. This is plainly contradicted by the fact that newspapers, which were a paid product sold at retail and by subscription and not routinely given away for free, were the primary mechanism by which the populace of the western world received news for over a century.
    - notacoward 7y ago
      > This is plainly contradicted No, it's not. Only 14 minutes elapsed between me pointing out that ads made it possible and you pretending that never happened. Is that a new gaslighting record? > It’s only with the undermining of subscription revenue That's the world we live in, and will live in for the foreseeable future, so my original questions still stand untouched by your diversions.
      - msbarnett 7y ago
        > Only 14 minutes elapsed between me pointing out that ads made it possible and you pretending that never happened. I’m not “pretending it didn’t happen” Literally what I wrote is “If, on the other hand, the organization is supported by a robust mix of sales and advertising”. It’s you who has constructed a ridiculous false dichotomy in which people who are calling for a return of subscriptions must somehow oppose the presence of advertising to supplement sales, an argument neither I nor the person you originally responded to made. The history here is quite clear: Sales allowed organizations to sell advertising space while also maintaining enough editorial independence to please subscribers and deliver high quality journalism. “Free news”, solely supported by advertising, is a toxic mess where editorial firewalls are routinely nonexistent.
Fnoord 7y ago
> ..which were heavily subsidized, if not outright paid for, by ads. Ads, yes. Tracking? No. Not remotely similar to what is happening on the Internet right now. The problem isn't advertising; it is tracking. Targeted advertising is just a result of tracking.
- Viliam1234 7y ago
  And if you start paying for an online newspaper, you will still be tracked. Actually, by subscribing you just made tracking you much easier.
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    A correct observation, unfortunately. Offline newspapers exist too. They are made of trees, need to be delivered by a minimum wage paperboy (who remembers the game Paperboy?), they lag a few hours to a day behind, and the fact you read that newspaper and pay for it electronically gives away something about you... But what it doesn't track is which articles you read. This is also a disadvantage of digital TV versus analog.

Broken_Hippo 7y ago

Well... yes and no. Not everyone could afford the newspaper on a regular basis, let alone a subscription (Which, where I lived, cost more than it did at the gas station). Regular newspapers were a luxury. You might have been lucky enough to read it at work, though. But you might be stuck with a local newspaper, which varies greatly in quality. One local newspaper was once a week, had no national or state-level news, was fraught with editorial mistakes, but was worth it if you wanted school news or yard sales. Many mid-level papers glossed over national and world news, were heavier on ads, and so on. You really needed to buy a major-city newspaper to stay informed. For me, what you could often find was the Indianapolis paper. Less commonly, the New York Times or even less commonly, the Chicago Tribune. Much more commonly, however, was local news on television. Televisions are one-time purchases after all and weren't that difficult to get with a tax refund check. The local news, if you had it, was definitely paid for by ads. And honestly, you only really got this news if you were able to watch it at the times it was on. Sure, they had 3 times a day with news, all of which coordinated with bankers hours.