Vox Media’s technology-focused site announced Tuesday that it was rolling out its first sitewide subscription service, putting some content behind a paywall.
“Can I have that once you’re finished with it?” Physical newspapers are subject to being given away by the original purchaser (or getting picked up from cafe tables or pulled from trashcans—people used to leave the damned things lying around everywhere), if you can’t afford to pay for them. It’s a bit more difficult to do that with digital content.
I guess gift links are a bit similar but obviously at a much smaller scale. I’m not sure how a fully similar digital system to sharing newspapers could be setup while still funding decent journalism.
I don’t hate paywalls though because I get it but I can’t say I’ve ever subscribed to get around one.
Focusing on the information we want, presented at the standard we expect, do you think we’re supposed to get all of that from hobbyists and volunteers? In our current, prevailing economic system, gathering and presenting information (reporting) takes time and effort. Entities that put their time and effort into the task, are going to need financial support. Everybody’s gotta eat.
In our present paradigm, if journalism is not supported financially, quality information would be less available. We already have to sift through a ton of bullshit on the web. Nobody paying for quality will drop the overall quality further. The emotional appeal for the less fortunate doesn’t change that.
I’m not trying to antagonize, but I wholeheartedly disagree with your sentiment. Though it would be ideal; it’s not realistic at the moment. I do hope we get there.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t live in a utopia that works like this. Journalists have wages, web servers cost a lot of money to run. Printing presses and physical distribution channels also cost a lot of money. If information should be free, how should publishers pay for all of these labor and infrastructure costs?
Everything you said is true and I never implied it wasn’t I was just saying that information should be free. If I had an idea on how to make it work I’d be working on it
So physical newspapers aren’t news?
“Can I have that once you’re finished with it?” Physical newspapers are subject to being given away by the original purchaser (or getting picked up from cafe tables or pulled from trashcans—people used to leave the damned things lying around everywhere), if you can’t afford to pay for them. It’s a bit more difficult to do that with digital content.
I guess gift links are a bit similar but obviously at a much smaller scale. I’m not sure how a fully similar digital system to sharing newspapers could be setup while still funding decent journalism.
I don’t hate paywalls though because I get it but I can’t say I’ve ever subscribed to get around one.
News papers are a physical item, not bits hidden behind a boolean set to true. Plus, I can go read a newspaper at the store if I want to.
You pay for information and not paper or pixels.
Information should be free. Putting it behind a paywall makes it so the less fortunate suffer by being kept out of the loop.
Information is free, it’s the transmission medium (paper printing or webservers) and the journalist’s wages that you should pay for.
Sounds like an impractical philosophy to me.
Focusing on the information we want, presented at the standard we expect, do you think we’re supposed to get all of that from hobbyists and volunteers? In our current, prevailing economic system, gathering and presenting information (reporting) takes time and effort. Entities that put their time and effort into the task, are going to need financial support. Everybody’s gotta eat.
In our present paradigm, if journalism is not supported financially, quality information would be less available. We already have to sift through a ton of bullshit on the web. Nobody paying for quality will drop the overall quality further. The emotional appeal for the less fortunate doesn’t change that.
I’m not trying to antagonize, but I wholeheartedly disagree with your sentiment. Though it would be ideal; it’s not realistic at the moment. I do hope we get there.
I also hope we get there which is why I said it should be free.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t live in a utopia that works like this. Journalists have wages, web servers cost a lot of money to run. Printing presses and physical distribution channels also cost a lot of money. If information should be free, how should publishers pay for all of these labor and infrastructure costs?
Everything you said is true and I never implied it wasn’t I was just saying that information should be free. If I had an idea on how to make it work I’d be working on it