The Day The Newspapers Shut Down Their Sites

Crap ... good point.

 

Identifying IPs based on what country they are in is fairly easy and accurate.

Identifying them by regions within the U.S. is less easy and much less accurate. For example, AOL subscribers -- yes, some of those still exist -- have IP addresses that identify them as being in Virginia no matter where they are accessing from.

So, that idea wouldn't really work that well.

 

Of course. But the obvious question is: How do you know they're not willing to pay?

(Oh, and belated response to your previous post: Mail subscriptions absolutely suck. I can't even get my own paper to deliver to me locally. Couldn't get the L.A. Times to deliver to me regularly in my old apartment. There are a lot of things wrong with newspapers right now, but consistent and reliable circulation is a very overlooked problem. Why the hell should I pay for a service that they can't ever seem to give me?)

 

Absolutely. Any time I start a subscription or have one changed to a new address, I have to call five times to get it started up. And that means navigating the phone maze that is the NY Times or Chicago Tribune's customer "service."

 

No matter how many times I begged my mother not to, she paid for a subscription to my hometown rag for 10 years after I left that damn town. I couldn't get away, no matter how hard she tried.

Once my eldest brother went into the hockey business, I wanted to read the damn thing. Then it wasn't online.

Now you've just prompted me to do a search and I found it. It made me curious as to whether they were charging at all.

Here's what they do:

Newspaper subscriptions

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* Access to read editorials, obituaries & classifieds
* Ability to comment on news articles, sports, entertainment and editorial opinions
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>> SIGN UP NOW

Online Newspaper Archive

You can also access our online newspaper archive for a low subscription price

3 Month Subscription - $10.36 (13% HST included)
6 Month Subscription - $20.72 (13% HST included)
1 Year Subscription - $41.43 (13% HST included)

Step 1: Sign up for a free website membership
Step 2: Log in and click 'Newspaper Archive' on the main menu to pay

 

This frankly sounds like yet another pie-in-the-sky "solution!!!" thought up by a desperate industry that should have been paying close attention to the possible effects and uses of the Web a decade ago.

Not saying "we should just give up!!!" but . . . I guess it's a bad thing that I laughed when I read the first post. It's great that so many of my brethren here have such passion for this topic, but I'm afraid we're just dreaming if we think the print product can be saved long term.

(Oh, and for you who - even now - continue to act like TV news is just a bunch of "brain-dead morons," you're the people I think of when someone talks about "newspaper arrogance." It is this brand of arrogance that has put us in this state)

 

When did Tire Barn ever give away free tires.

Newspapers have been giving themselves away for free online for a long time. They can't suddenly stop and blame their customers for not appreciating them enough. Guess who trained the readers to expect free websites? "Sucks for you" = FAIL.

 

So you think everything should be free on the Internet? Living in 1998, I guess. Again, that philosophy has an ever-growing body count.

 

Not sure how you jump from that statement to your conclusion. Being delusional probably helps.

 

Huh? Sounds a little ad hominem to me. You didn't answer my question: Do you think everything should be free on the Internet?

 

Never stated it should be.

 

So why are you shooting down the idea of papers starting to charge? What if there were no print Plain Dealer? Would you just ignore more than a century of tradition and not follow the paper online for a nominal charge?