Cost of a single copy of "your" newspaper

[I Should Coco]

My mom gets the Boston papers and probably pays $120 a month. I know people in both newsrooms and she has the money to spend, so I haven't pushed back. Is it worth it? For her happiness, sure. But half the reason she gets the papers, for the prior day's lottery numbers, isn't even possible anymore with stupid early deadlines. Another way to devalue your product. I've tried explaining to her about five times why the lottery numbers aren't in the paper now, but she isn't having it.

I was back in Chicago recently, helping my in laws move, and I noticed that with the Chicago Tribune print edition (my in laws still subscribe, although not for the lottery numbers). Too early of a deadline for lottery numbers — or last night's baseball game, for that matter.

Instead, the Tribune has one of those QR codes in place of where the lottery numbers used to be. "Scan this with your phone to get the lottery numbers," it says in each day's paper. I'm guessing a lot of those readers who still subscribe to print don't know what to do with that.