Are you willing to pay for online subscriptions?
The internet is free. Most of the time. And that is a problem for paid subscription based companies.
My fellow blogger, Joel, hit a nerve with many of you when he asked, "Do you have time to read the newspaper?"
If you are one of the people who said you don’t, you are not alone. This article claims the internet is the biggest problem facing newspapers today.
But I find myself resentful when I’m online and I can’t get to the information because I have to sign up. And generally, if there is a paid subscription involved, I just move on and try to find something available for free.
It’s not always the money. And I realize that companies need to make money in order to provide services. I just don’t want to spend the day filling in forms. I may want a single piece of information once in a while, but I don’t need anymore daily e-mails clogging up my inbox. I can’t get to all the personal e-mails I need to review each day.
Sometimes I think I would like to stop getting all the magazines and papers I do subscribe to too. I spend at least ten minutes a week throwing them away!!
How about you? Are you ready for a paperless society? Are you willing to pay for online subscriptions, or will you seek out free information instead?
May 1st, 2006 at 11:28 am
For me, a large part of reading anything is the tactile experience. It always has been and always will be. I don’t get my news from the Internet. I need to touch, smell and wrestle with a [i]real[/i] newspaper - and do so daily. In fact, one of my treats to myself each week is the [i]Sunday New York Times[/i]. It may take me most of the week to get around to reading it all but I appreciate perusing a [i]real[/i] newspaper.
It’s not an issue of paying for online subscriptions. It simply annoys the hell out of me to be required to register for many of the free online news resources. One of our local television stations requires registration to review news stories. I won’t even bother. The other local stations don’t require registration at all and I will always go to their sites if I need more information about a local story.
Jeff Fisher
Engineer of Creative Identity
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