So the digital age means the end of newspapers, right?
Most would say that digital transformation in the news industry is crucial, but being fully reliant on digital readers may be a myth.
Read it here
Image from here
Although many subscribers to The New York Times do pay for their news. By introducing a paywall in their business model, the publisher has now cultivated over 2.2 million paying readers.
What is a Paywall?
So you click onto a website that publishes news and content. After reading a few articles a screen comes up saying that you're number of free articles has exceeded and you need to pay to unlock reading the whole website. Have you ever experienced that? If so, that, my friend is a paywall. It restricts access in the hopes to incentivise you to pay for content should you want to read more. Thus, firms who employ this business model need to ensure their content remains relevant and of high quality to attract subscribers.
And it seems The New York Times is doing a great job. In fact, so great that it seems like a 'smart' decision to cut print out altogether.
Benefits of digital print in terms of:
- accessibility and proliferation of information
- attracting a larger readership market (think of individuals scrolling on Facebook and essentially 'reading the news' on their timeline
- convenience
- opportunity to be more interactive by including videos
HMMMMM
However, not everyone is super convinced about the sustainability of this digital model. I'm slightly apprehensive about it. I mean, I do agree that digital will be widespread - eventually, but for now, it wouldn't be wise to completely cut print from existence.
For example, most people actually enjoy reading actual print. There's evidence that readers still engage with print rather than their digital counterparts.
What do you think?
Funny I came across this today. This morning stopping for coffee, the lady in front of me was purchasing a paper newspaper. She paid $1.50 USD for her daily news.
I feel with society being lead into this "instant gratification" world, paper newspapers just won't be able to keep up. I truly think this is an older generation tendency that may slowly die out.
oooh! yes it is so interesting to see that there is still a market (predominantly the older generation) that still purchase the newspaper.
I do agree, I know some people argue that there's nothing better than being able to read a real-life newspaper but it definitely isn't enough to spread news as quickly. Plus so much news is integrated within social media, that it could be the new competitive marketplace. At the same time, I think other print such as magazines may potentially stay around longer because it's more creative based and doesn't require as much immediacy in their distribution of information.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts @iexplore <3
Now I feel old. I still buy newspapers especially the once a week local newspaper we have here sold every Sunday. They have a website but that is updated every Wednesday. I don't want to be left behind with the latest local news now, would I? :D There are contents in the print that are not in the website like obituary lol! But especially ads and job vacancies.
Indeed there are benefits of digital print but how are they beneficial when there's no power, no gadgets to access online? Those are probably negligible reasons but there is still benefit of reading it on paper.
I have to agree that access to information is easier now and that the paper is neglected. It is a tough competition out there.
hahaha the local news is always good to read esp when they advertise local food or arts festival events @leeart! Completely agree that we have become a culture of dependency on technology. I always fear that in a few generations, no one will be able to write properly :o
Yes on all points! I can't always find things easily online. Maybe I just don't know where to look lol!
Writing is an issue. Txt speak has affected us all. We should discourage that.
100% agree if all the fancy tech disappears. There is still certainly needs for print papers now or they wouldn't be around.
Can we start newspaper blockchain networks? Maybe local newspapers and magazines and book publishers and cartoonists and authors and writers and other people and other editors and reporters and publishers and bloggers and vloggers and song writers and artists and musicians and Real-Estators and other people can register accounts social blockchain networks, websites, and also other places too maybe, online, like for example, places like http://Gab.com and http://Minds.com and/or better yet here on http://Steemit.com to share stuff online in a more interactive way or something.
what about phonebooks? I find them essentially useless now a days where you can look something up on your smart phone in seconds.
Yeah, haha, almost, phone books are less required, but we can customize phone books more now for our own personal collections for fun perhaps & print them with our own printers or through maybe a third party somewhere. I like the competition.
yesss our smart phone is literally a library of all the information we could possibly want @kryptocek! I remember being excited to go through those phone books as a child trying to find my friends numbers and then finding my own home phone number just for the fun of it lolll
haha completely agree. You'd go find your last name just to make sure it was right in the phonebook. Then you'd have the one word friend whose number was private or something and you couldn't find it in the phone book haha.
It may be the end to monopoly print. And monopoly means no competition. We have printers which is like a small printing press. We have 3D Printers. We are making programs on computers & devices. We have electronic books and many different things. We can print thing. We still can buy books at bookstores. But we don't have to. That means there are more choices for all of us in what we may want to read. We can order books & other things online & they can be sent to us by snail mail.
Big companies get smaller as we buy from their newspaper monopoly less and less and corporations and printing presses and publishers hate that and people may lose work or money or may have to work less. So, it can be tough for some and they will have to adapt and work harder to make money or maybe they have to find other jobs or may have to live with less money or may have to figure things out more.
hey @joeyarnoldvn! thanks for stopping by again and offering your thoughts :D I definitely think we have to prepare for the digital future and the opportunities it brings. Like you said, we have to figure things out and adapt to this changing world. It's both scary and exciting :)
Awesome. You are a smart cute girl. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for the support, Joey :)
Sweet.
I've never heard of Paywall, that's interesting. I came across it on Medium, though. And I didn't like it haha. It's strange, because sometimes I can read their articles (if I'm on my phone), and sometimes that pop up shows up, on my desktop.
I think it makes a lot of sense on The New York Times, though. I don't own any paper. Only the necessary. I'm the kind of person that will ask ANYTHING to be digital - my bills, bank prints, etc. I hate paper haha! So, I agree 100% about replacing the physical newspaper with the digital version. Nevertheless, I do understand why some people still like the paper version and want to get it. The country I live in is super traditional, so I don't think that's going to happen here too soon.
I'm glad we're slowly moving to digital, specially because of Environmental issues.
hellooo @julimattos, thanks for offering your thoughts <3 yesss so true, it totally intrudes on the reading experience but i guess that's what companies have to do in order to reap some profit. I guess it seems weird to people that we have to essentially pay for the news in a world where you can access 'free' news.
and hahah I am also a digital person when it comes to all that. Saves me from filing it away :p
I'm torn between digital and not especially with the use of paper and its impact to the environment. I agree that other stuff should be digitized but not newspaper.
There is one advantage to the print media over digital media, and that is that it is in print, it is hard to change a story after it is 'Printed', editing of changing, and deleting digital print is not so hard to do.
oh that's true! Didn't think of that, thanks for sharing @bashadow. It could be that one day we can't change and delete on digital anymore - just like how you can't change the contents of steemit posts after 7 days