Daily Office:
Friday
¶ Matins: It’s time to pay up. You’re reading this for free, and, for the time being, that’s fine. I don’t need the money right now. But The New York Times, from which I draw so many of my links, does. It’s teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Handwriting on the wall:
- James Surowiecki in The New Yorker. Moral of the story? You get what you pay for; or: you pay nothing, you get nothing.
- Richard Pérez-Peña in The New York Times. The incredible shrinking Washington press corps.
Now, I’m a paid-up subscriber who gets everyday delivery of the paper. Your cost could be much, much lower. Who knows how low? The problem is, nobody’s really asking.
Oremus…
§ Matins. The last time I looked into micropayments, I was dismayed by what I will have to call the negativism of nattering nabobs, to paraphrase a long-ago VP. “Can’t be done,” they said. “Hasn’t been tried,” said I. Now that free lunches are being withdrawn from the table everywhere, it may be time to look into what a nickel will buy.
Thank you, Spiro. And the thought that I will not hear the reassuring ‘thunk’ of my NY Times hitting my door leaves me beyond unahappy……
What I’ve never understood is why so many newspapers allow free access to the on-line versions of their publications. I have for several years paid for an on-line subscription to the Wall Street Journal, and would be more than willing to pay for an on-line subscription to the NYT (although not to the Chicago Tribune–another of my regular reads–because its site, while recently improved, is still terrible; ditto the Washington Post).