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Micropayments! A Tiny Rant
Dec. 16th, 2009 01:28 pmThe December 4 episode of On The Media got me in a huff, yet again. They interviewed another media/newspaper professional. He spoke of "progress" developing a revenue stream for news in an era of collapsing papers. And he focused again on financial dogma dredged from the turn of the last century; revenue from advertisements and subscriptions.
I must be blunt. Both concepts must be ass-raped. Hard. With a 50 grit dildo.
I've already mentioned why paying for news with ads is bad. I'll be mentioning it again and again, I can assure everyone. In a nutshell, what happens to the intrepid reporter that stumbles upon the Story of the Century only to find the trail of evidence leads directly to the news outlet's chief advertiser? Those stories get squashed, or buried. Or the reporter gets fired. What ever way it happens, the story fails to become news. Large revenue sources become their own way of saying "Shut up." Trust me, this happens. I'll be mentioning a few actual instances where it happened to disastrous consequence in later posts.
That leaves subscriptions, ( which suck, suck, suck. )
Addendum, the Next Day: I was mulling this post at work today and had a thought (one most likely caused from the fasting I needed to do for a damned blood draw): Maybe the newspapers have got this all wrong.
I know, I know, that much should be obvious.
What I considered was not that newspapers are trapped in an old business model that just doesn't work today, but that maybe they ( need not look to the kindness of strangers. )
I must be blunt. Both concepts must be ass-raped. Hard. With a 50 grit dildo.
I've already mentioned why paying for news with ads is bad. I'll be mentioning it again and again, I can assure everyone. In a nutshell, what happens to the intrepid reporter that stumbles upon the Story of the Century only to find the trail of evidence leads directly to the news outlet's chief advertiser? Those stories get squashed, or buried. Or the reporter gets fired. What ever way it happens, the story fails to become news. Large revenue sources become their own way of saying "Shut up." Trust me, this happens. I'll be mentioning a few actual instances where it happened to disastrous consequence in later posts.
That leaves subscriptions, ( which suck, suck, suck. )
Addendum, the Next Day: I was mulling this post at work today and had a thought (one most likely caused from the fasting I needed to do for a damned blood draw): Maybe the newspapers have got this all wrong.
I know, I know, that much should be obvious.
What I considered was not that newspapers are trapped in an old business model that just doesn't work today, but that maybe they ( need not look to the kindness of strangers. )