Taxing ISPs to Prop Up Failing Newspapers? > Didn't you have to pay for a newspaper subscription?

Didn't you have to pay for a newspaper subscription?

5 or 10 dollars per person?!? Are you kidding me. That is more money than I spend a year on MUSIC.

Screw that crap. We are talking billions in money to them if they charge that much.

How about 5 to 10 cents geez.
--
MatthewSauk.com

reply to iotastorm
Problem is, nobody gives enough of a crap to pay for the newspaper anymore, particularly if it''s online, unless the newspaper delivers that much value compared with all the free news sources out there.

As a higher-up in my college newspaper (whole different ball game) we're about 25 cents per issue per student underwater. We're working to pump up the web edition sso we can actually get into the black. One thing's for sure: we ain't gonna ask Comcast and Qwest to charge their student customers an extra $2 per month for our value-added services.

Wonder when new ISPs will come out with barebones internet service...you get a modem (WiMAX or LTE) from the local Wal-Mart, plug it in, find a network (a la WiFI), connect, are greeted with an option for a day or month pass, accept the month pass, and then just use your internet for whatever.

I mean, c'mon, we aren't paying Western Union part of our telephone bills because telegrams started dying off after teh phone's inception. Then again, Western Union has now stopped telegrams. If only the newspapers would likewise figure out how to stop losing money.

Working for a college paper, you should have an idea of how much effort goes into real reporting. It's aint easy or cheap, and online ad revenues will never be enough to cover. An ISP "tax" for print newspapers isn't fair, and wouldn't be enough to keep the papers around anyway. We have to admit that in-depth, comprehensive reporting will soon be extinct.

I wouldn't say reporting and journalism is extinct, just that it'll have to be a premium product, and a specialized one, in order to survive. Eventually the industry will stabilize, with lower pay to be sure, but some firms will be weeded out, leaving entities that provide value proportional to their cost, either in advertising money or real money. People will still pay for news, but the quality has to be high. Also, high quality content attracts high quality visitors which react to high quality, high priced ads...

reply to iotastorm
the thing that burns me on this is that the idea is as dumb as say if Airline tickets had gotten a tax after the Boeing 707 killed the steamship for crossing the ocean on a trip.
--
[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports