Another suggestion from a friend, yes it's the same one, I don't have all that many but I'm fine with that. Unlike last night's post though, this isn't exactly what he suggested. I'd tell you what he suggested but it'd give everything away. And that's what they will tell you if you were to ask the people that tonight's rant is about, they'd ask if you wanted them to give it away.
Have you ever paid for a magazine or newspaper subscription? What's the first thing that you see after you open the cover? An advertisement right? That's what this is all about. And it doesn't even have to be about paying for the subscription, it can be about paying for it in the grocery store checkout line as well. You paid for it yet you are stuck looking at advertisements. What is the point of paying for something when you are paying with your time to deal with the ads? To me, that's paying twice! If I want advertisements, I don't want to pay. That is supposed to be the point of the ads, to pay for it so you don't have to. I don't complain about all the ads in Gmail or when I do a Google search because I'm not paying for it. I pay for a subscription to Google All Access (the music service) so that I can listen to music without ads. If I listen to the over-the-air radio, I won't complain about the ads because that is how I would be paying for it, in my time. But these magazines and newspapers are putting more and more ads into their content as well as raising their prices. And that's all about trying to compete with the free access to all of their content that we can get online.
Which leads to the suggestion that my friend gave me. Why do these publishing companies think that we want to pay a subscription fee for their online content? Seriously, all we have to do is a search on the internet and we can probably get the story directly from the same source that they are quoting. Come on! If you want something even easier, I can point you in the right direction. It's called an app! Pick your favorite mobile platform and you can get all the news you want delivered right to your pocket for free. But top that off with the idea that there are several apps out there now that allow you to determine the types of stories you want and the sources you want them from. That's right, you can get the exact news you want when you want it without paying for it. Sure, you will see a little banner ad at the bottom of the screen but does it really interfere with what you are reading? Is it more intrusive then the full pages that you have to flip through in magazines? I don't think so. And the fact that I can get them when I want any time I want and you see why so many of these publishers are struggling to survive.
I find it utterly ridiculous that all of these companies feel the need to expect us to pay for their subscriptions (online or in print) then subject us to all of the ads that they put in there. Just how much money do they need to make? Where are they spending all that money? They will claim it's for all the investigation that they do but journalism just isn't what it used to be. The investigations aren't something that takes a lot of travel or shady deals, it's sitting at a desk scouring the internet for leads. And look how often even the "trusted" names are getting it wrong lately (CNN with the Bit Coin founder comes to mind as the latest). They are investigating things, they are just trying to get a story out there first hoping to drag you into paying for a subscription just so you can see their ads.
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