I see the point you're making, but I'm not sure it's a fair assessment that my attitude is why journalism is dying. I'd almost go so far as to say we're making the same point.
See, back in the "good olde days", I could subscribe to 1 or 2 sources of news (in my case the local paper and the big city paper) and get something like 80-90% of my general news. I guess largely through the magic of syndication. When someone shared a story with me, it was physically clipped, no paywall. And I get the impression that advertising was fairly effective.
The attitude that is killing journalism is, IMHO, the publishers attitude that the world still operates the same way it did 40 years ago: buy a subscription to us and advertisements work.
One of the big reasons I don't subscribe to, say NYT, is that in a given month there are only a few articles there that I seem to be reading. There are maybe 5-7 sources like that, and, when I'm honest with myself, my life isn't enriched by $100/mo subscribing to them. And advertisements just don't seem to work in today's world.
For example: I do pay for The Guardian because they:
- Don't paywall their articles.
- They pop up a reminder that I've looked at X articles.
- I can pay what I want (I probably average paying them around $1 or 2 per article I read).
See, back in the "good olde days", I could subscribe to 1 or 2 sources of news (in my case the local paper and the big city paper) and get something like 80-90% of my general news. I guess largely through the magic of syndication. When someone shared a story with me, it was physically clipped, no paywall. And I get the impression that advertising was fairly effective.
The attitude that is killing journalism is, IMHO, the publishers attitude that the world still operates the same way it did 40 years ago: buy a subscription to us and advertisements work.
One of the big reasons I don't subscribe to, say NYT, is that in a given month there are only a few articles there that I seem to be reading. There are maybe 5-7 sources like that, and, when I'm honest with myself, my life isn't enriched by $100/mo subscribing to them. And advertisements just don't seem to work in today's world.