The Day The Newspapers Shut Down Their Sites

So if I walk into McDonald's and order a free Big Mac ... what should I expect the person behind the counter to say?

People who read you online for free aren't "customers."

 

Guess what ... "Here you go, read our work for free" also = FAIL.

 

You're reading things that aren't there.

This thread is about newspapers folding their arms and stamping their feet and holding their breath until they get noticed. I never said newspapers shouldn't try to charge. I said telling your customers "sucks to be you" is a bad business model.

 

When did McDonald's train their customers to do that?

And I'll tell you what -- even if someone went into McDonald's and asked for something outlandish and stupid, no management will tolerate its employees answering, "No, sucks to be you."

 

I don't think he actually meant you drive to every subscriber's home and personally tell them how much it sucks to be them.

He means you try a pay model. And if people don't want to pay, they don't get the service.

I think "sucks to be you" is a little bit of hyperbole. And if that's what you're hung up on, you're having a different argument than everybody else.

 

Yup. You're hung up on the phrasing. You ARE having a different argument than the rest of us.

Here's a good example. Got a letter recently from Time Warner that says, due to an accounting error, I've been undercharged for my cable package for the last, oh, five years. The letter said if I want to keep getting the channels I've been getting, I need to pony up more money.

Had I called and said, "But I don't want to pay more money" -- they would have said, "Sorry sir, you have to pay for this service. We can't give it to you for free."

In other words, sucks to be me.

 

How did someone who works for a newspaper confuse "Sucks for them" with "Sucks to be you" anyway? That's pretty bad. The entire context changed. I wouldn't want that person editing my copy.

 

Or you'd order Directv, Dish Network, etc. Or maybe watch on Hulu.com. Yes, there are other choices. Or maybe you'd learn to live without it.

What if your cable company turned itself off for two weeks ... and then decided to charge you more when they came back. Would you pay ...?

Online is not why newspapers are failing and starting to charge for the product is not going to save papers, either. People's habit have changed - and you take away this resource, and they will adapt.

 

Lantaur, you've regularly been pro-blogs and anti-papers, and clearly wouldn't give a crap if papers died. Without newspapers, who will uncover the hypothetical e-coli crisis that Fenian referred to on the Rocky Mountain News thread?

 

He's right, though. Advertisers' habits may not have changed, which is why the printnline revenue ratio is still where it's at, but readers' habits sure have.

 

Really? That's funny, because even amid the shitty economy of the past year, I sold online campaigns to realtors, hotels, retirement homes, casinos, golf resorts, wineries and amusement parks who specifically wanted us to geotarget their ads to our website's out-of-state visitors.

On top of that, it might surprise you to learn that all kinds of businesses have these wacky things called "online stores" that enable consumers to shop without physically stepping inside the brick-and-mortar building. Guess what - the our website's visitors tend to be familiar with the concept of purchasing goods online, and businesses are in fact interested in reaching these consumers.

Maybe you'd know these things if you bothered to educate yourself, Frank.

 

How many times, guys? The solution to addressing new technology is to take advantage of it, not to run scared from it.