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(Guardian.com) Unlikely Within a year, most news sites will be charging for Web content. Which its subscribers can enjoy anytime, whether at home or riding their flying unicorn to their $100-an-hour job at the green energy plant   (guardian.co.uk) divider line 97
More: Unlikely  

97 Comments   (+0 »)


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real_headhoncho [TotalFark] 2009-07-16 11:42:17 AM  
static.guim.co.uk
I'M A SMUG BASTARD THAT WILL MAKE YOU BEND
OVER AND SQUEAL BECAUSE I SAY SO


Actually, what this farktard missed out is that the selling price of a newspaper covers the cost of distributing it (delivery trucks, paperboys, newsstands, etc). The money that is made on a newspaper is THROUGH ADVERTISING! This is yet another example of greedy bastards that want us to pay multiple times for the same thing while not producing new content. Here's the flaw in your model - people will go to the sites that DON'T farkING CHARGE!

Unless someone makes an iMagazine that downloads the content off the web automatically...

 
haemaker [TotalFark] 2009-07-16 12:34:53 PM  
Heh, I didn't pay to watch twitter out of Iran. Why would I pay some AP hack to repeat what they saw on twitter?

Reliability was supposed to be the hallmark of MSM. If they reported it, it was verified by multiple sources.

Now we have the 24 hour news cycle where there is no time for verification and MOST of the content is opinion.

Since CNN is no better than some guy on the internet, why pay?

They are all done.

 
Russ1642 2009-07-16 01:42:11 PM  
You can charge whatever you want. The problem is getting people to pay you.

 
Fano 2009-07-16 01:42:38 PM  
real_headhoncho: I'M A SMUG BASTARD THAT WILL MAKE YOU BEND
OVER AND SQUEAL BECAUSE I SAY SO

Actually, what this farktard missed out is that the selling price of a newspaper covers the cost of distributing it (delivery trucks, paperboys, newsstands, etc). The money that is made on a newspaper is THROUGH ADVERTISING! This is yet another example of greedy bastards that want us to pay multiple times for the same thing while not producing new content. Here's the flaw in your model - people will go to the sites that DON'T farkING CHARGE!

Unless someone makes an iMagazine that downloads the content off the web automatically...


Hey, everytime you "refresh page" you cheap bastard they have to print the pictures again.

/won't someone please think of the newspaper barons?

 
Wizzin 2009-07-16 01:42:58 PM  
Yea, good luck with that.

 
NeverDrunk23 2009-07-16 01:43:29 PM  
haemaker: Now we have the 24 hour news cycle where there is no time for verification and MOST of the content is opinion.


Most of it is opinion. The majority of it is BS, though.

 
Thisbymaster 2009-07-16 01:43:50 PM  
Does that mean by the end of the year most news agencies will be shutdown from lack of profits?

 
vernonFL [TotalFark] 2009-07-16 01:44:21 PM  
What kind of idiot would pay $5 per month to look at a website?

 
tedbundee 2009-07-16 01:45:02 PM  
Internet Bubble 2.0

 
angry_scientist 2009-07-16 01:45:09 PM  
If I don't pay for porn, why would I pay for news?

 
Eyebleach [TotalFark] 2009-07-16 01:45:26 PM  
vernonFL: What kind of idiot would pay $5 per month to look at a website?

There are a bunch of dumb bastards out there.

 
feanturi 2009-07-16 01:45:37 PM  
Internet ink is a lot more expensive than regular printing ink. Your monitor has to refresh at least 60 times per second, do you have any idea how much ink you go through just sitting on a page without doing anything? It's astronomical.

 
Morton_toes 2009-07-16 01:45:43 PM  
FTFA: "I do not wish to sound precious. British journalism has always put a premium on the scoop and it has long blurred the distinction between news and comment," said Barber.

And they wonder why nobody is willing to pay for their shiatty opinions when we can get a virtual universe of shiatty opinions for free.

/You can't fake that level of stupidity.

 
absoluteparanoia 2009-07-16 01:46:09 PM  
In the future we will charge you for things we won't see you do.

We're going to start at $10 per time you post, and $20 for every time you masturbate. And considering the posts here on fark, I think we will be making money in $30 increments.

We'll be rich!

 
onebadgungan 2009-07-16 01:46:21 PM  
Wow, subby, you managed to get an Obama dig in on a story that has nothing to do with him.

9/10

 
scottywotty 2009-07-16 01:46:22 PM  
Ha ha, great headline, subby.

 
karmaceutical 2009-07-16 01:47:00 PM  
vernonFL: What kind of idiot would pay $5 per month to look at a website?

Maybe for abbywinters.com but that is about it.

 
Gosling [TotalFark] 2009-07-16 01:47:25 PM  
WHAT WILL ACTUALLY END UP HAPPENING:

*One person will pay up.
*That one person copy/pastes the article and distributes it free to everyone else, making sure to delete all the advertisements in the process.
*Money made by newspaper: A couple bucks, maybe a couple cents extra if the copy/paster felt nice enough to click the ads.

 
lukelightning 2009-07-16 01:47:49 PM  
Green energy you say? My power plant produced nothing but 100% green energy! Why here is one of my employees now, holding some of my green energy while piloting his automo-car.
farm2.static.flickr.com

 
drunkenmidnight 2009-07-16 01:47:53 PM  
they sure do try to make money off the Internet. ISPs in the USA are trying to do metered bandwidth and charge you accordingly. Luckily, each time the big ISPs have tried it (Time Warner and Comcast) it has failed in their test markets.

If they ever start charging me for my bandwidth I will become a wifi pirate, and I will splice into other people's internet and set up rogue APs. I will piss off every IT guy out there that would have to deal with all my rogue APs.

I would be like the Robin Hood of the Internets!

 
rytheran 2009-07-16 01:48:12 PM  
onebadgungan: Wow, subby, you managed to get an Obama dig in on a story that has nothing to do with him.

9/10


I agree with that score, nicely done.

 
mloree 2009-07-16 01:48:32 PM  
They have to do something. Who BUYS a newspaper anymore?

/other than bird owners, of course

 
albo [TotalFark] 2009-07-16 01:48:55 PM  
onebadgungan: Wow, subby, you managed to get an Obama dig in on a story that has nothing to do with him.

9/10


thanks. i think i'm getting a hang of this sub-mitting stuff
/subby

 
Democratic Secularist Omnivore 2009-07-16 01:49:01 PM  
haemaker: Heh, I didn't pay to watch twitter out of Iran. Why would I pay some AP hack to repeat what they saw on twitter?

Reliability was supposed to be the hallmark of MSM. If they reported it, it was verified by multiple sources.

Now we have the 24 hour news cycle where there is no time for verification and MOST of the content is opinion.

Since CNN is no better than some guy on the internet, why pay?

They are all done.


Right, because if you read it on twitter it must be true.

 
dead_dangler [recently expired TotalFark] 2009-07-16 01:49:25 PM  
vernonFL: What kind of idiot would pay $5 per month to look at a website?

A drooling one.

 
Walker [TotalFark] 2009-07-16 01:50:17 PM  
I don't pay for any web content. Oh wait. Well I can't live without my daily Family Circus caption contest on TFD.

 
kagemaru026 [TotalFark] 2009-07-16 01:50:19 PM  
Eyebleach: vernonFL: What kind of idiot would pay $5 per month to look at a website?

There are a bunch of dumb bastards out there.


The tards.

 
bukketmaster 2009-07-16 01:50:38 PM  
I don't think "sites" quite meshes with "its", subby, but then again, illiteracy has never been a big problem with the anti-Obama crowd.

/the word you were looking for was "their"
//"their"

 
Burchill 2009-07-16 01:51:20 PM  
I hope Murdoch is this much of an idiot.

 
Morton_toes 2009-07-16 01:51:26 PM  
drunkenmidnight: they sure do try to make money off the Internet. ISPs in the USA are trying to do metered bandwidth and charge you accordingly. Luckily, each time the big ISPs have tried it (Time Warner and Comcast) it has failed in their test markets.

If they ever start charging me for my bandwidth I will become a wifi pirate, and I will splice into other people's internet and set up rogue APs. I will piss off every IT guy out there that would have to deal with all my rogue APs.

I would be like the Robin Hood of the Internets!


Men in Bytes?

 
dcb73 2009-07-16 01:52:08 PM  
silly subby, unicorns don't fly.

 
Jument 2009-07-16 01:53:20 PM  
Snarkiness aside, I would pay $5 for access to a quality news site that did not bombard me with advertisements and do stupid shiat like slideshow articles.

However, if it's just your standard news outlet with banner adds, slide shows, and crap stories re-posted off Reuters and standard "this is what X may look like" pictures you can farking DIAF if you think I will pay for it.

 
TheSpaceAdmiral [TotalFark] 2009-07-16 01:53:36 PM  
I've said this before on Fark, but the newspapers need to collaborate for their payment systems.

There's no way I'm going to pay to read any particular newspaper or even a medium sized set of newspapers. But if 90% of major Canadian and U.S. newspapers charged money for their sites, I would probably be willing to pay $25 per month for access to all of those.

 
Khellendros 2009-07-16 01:54:07 PM  
Incorrect.

Scenario: MSNBC.com charges $5 for its website. Everyone goes to CNN.com. MSNBC loses 80% of ad revenue, of which only 10% is made up by the rubes that subscribe. CNN, which has done NOTHING NEW, see their ad revenue double. They didn't charge before, and certainly have no need to now. MSNBC declares bankruptcy, shrinks to 1/10 of current size.

With more than 10 major news outlets in the U.S., no one will be so stupid as to start charging. This doesn't even take into account people stealing and reprinting articles from pay sites. The ones that charge will die horrible deaths.

 
albo [TotalFark] 2009-07-16 01:54:10 PM  
bukketmaster: the word you were looking for was "their"
//"their"


thanks. you can notify the admins and ask them to correct it if you like

 
ihatedumbpeople 2009-07-16 01:55:16 PM  
I think it'd be awesome if they started charging. Hopefully it will kill them all off. People will simply get their news elsewhere.

 
Jha 2009-07-16 01:55:39 PM  
bukketmaster: I don't think "sites" quite meshes with "its", subby, but then again, illiteracy has never been a big problem with the anti-Obama crowd.

/the word you were looking for was "their"
//"their"


Can't counter the point subby made, so may as well as find something else to poke fun at.

 
angry_scientist 2009-07-16 01:55:56 PM  
Gov. news coming to a console near you!

Would you like to know more?
Y
N

 
smerfnablin 2009-07-16 01:56:04 PM  
dcb73: silly subby, unicorns don't fly.

Interesting point of discussion

If you have a horse with a horn, its a Unicorn
If you have a winged hourse, its a Pegasus

So if you have a winged horse with a horn, would you consider it

A. A winged unicorn?

or

B. A horned pegasus?


I just want to know what we are all supposed to ask for next year when we file our taxes...

 
drunkenmidnight 2009-07-16 01:56:29 PM  
Morton_toes: drunkenmidnight: they sure do try to make money off the Internet. ISPs in the USA are trying to do metered bandwidth and charge you accordingly. Luckily, each time the big ISPs have tried it (Time Warner and Comcast) it has failed in their test markets.

If they ever start charging me for my bandwidth I will become a wifi pirate, and I will splice into other people's internet and set up rogue APs. I will piss off every IT guy out there that would have to deal with all my rogue APs.

I would be like the Robin Hood of the Internets!

Men in Bytes?


Well that would mean there would have to be at least 16 of us to make bytes plural, since there are 8 bits in a byte. I guess I am saying that 1 man = 1 bit?

Hmm.........

Nice pun btw

 
RatOmeter 2009-07-16 01:56:33 PM  
If they could provide a means by which I could cheaply, easily and securely pay for a daily online "newspaper," I'd go for it. Now before you say "sure, they provide that already," I'd like to clarify my requirements.

1. Cheaply means no more than about 10 cents for a daily edition. The printing costs are gone and the only distribution costs are their Internet hosting/bandwidth. I'm assuming the costs of fact-finding, reporting and other journalistic activities don't change much.

2. "Easily and securely" means just like handing a dime to the person behind the counter. They can't purposefully or accidentally abuse my credit card or identity if all they have from me is a dime. If someone else at the newspaper stand sees me hand them a dime, so what? Compare that to the real possiblity of someone intercepting my online credit card transaction or cracking an online database or stealing a notebook computer with that info.

 
elwood1972 2009-07-16 01:57:08 PM  
Fine, I'll get my news the old fashioned way, hearsay and rumors and Art Bell!

 
absoluteparanoia 2009-07-16 01:57:56 PM  
smerfnablin: dcb73: silly subby, unicorns don't fly.

Interesting point of discussion

If you have a horse with a horn, its a Unicorn
If you have a winged hourse, its a Pegasus

So if you have a winged horse with a horn, would you consider it

A. A winged unicorn?

or

B. A horned pegasus?


I just want to know what we are all supposed to ask for next year when we file our taxes...


It's a Pegacorn. But for tax purposes they you can also call it a Unisus.

 
Jsil 2009-07-16 01:58:47 PM  
Because Giant Media conglomerates need more money

GOOD 1


AND ALSO I FLY A MAGIC CARPET NOT A UNICORN TO WORK TYVM

 
lukelightning 2009-07-16 01:59:40 PM  
smerfnablin:
So if you have a winged horse with a horn, would you consider it

A. A winged unicorn?

or

B. A horned pegasus?


It's a uniporn.

 
kittyhas1000legs 2009-07-16 01:59:40 PM  
dead_dangler: vernonFL: What kind of idiot would pay $5 per month to look at a website?

A drooling one.


I was thinking of a Blithering Idiot.

/too lazy to post beer label

 
LordRosco 2009-07-16 02:00:42 PM  
Charge away biatches, Al-Jazeera will probably stay for free though. And their reports on US politics are usually do not include the usual ass-kissing press we get here.

 
Morton_toes 2009-07-16 02:02:03 PM  
drunkenmidnight: Morton_toes: drunkenmidnight: they sure do try to make money off the Internet. ISPs in the USA are trying to do metered bandwidth and charge you accordingly. Luckily, each time the big ISPs have tried it (Time Warner and Comcast) it has failed in their test markets.

If they ever start charging me for my bandwidth I will become a wifi pirate, and I will splice into other people's internet and set up rogue APs. I will piss off every IT guy out there that would have to deal with all my rogue APs.

I would be like the Robin Hood of the Internets!

Men in Bytes?

Well that would mean there would have to be at least 16 of us to make bytes plural, since there are 8 bits in a byte. I guess I am saying that 1 man = 1 bit?

Hmm.........

Nice pun btw


I would like to volunteer to be in your band of merry-men and assist with the plunder of the information aristocracy for the benefit of the masses.

/if it includes drinking ale & meade, that is.
//Oh, and wenches. Gotta have wenches...

 
imfallen_angel 2009-07-16 02:02:09 PM  
I used to read the two local newspaper sites once upon a time.

The better one did the charge thing, I stopped going and read the other one.

In time the other one got better and better and I didn't miss the first one.

So the first one went another way, they give the first couple of paragraphs for free now and you pay to read the whole thing.

The second one also changed and became stupid again.

Then I discovered Fark and haven't really bothered with these two since.

 
WeenerGord 2009-07-16 02:02:15 PM  
feanturi: Internet ink is a lot more expensive than regular printing ink. Your monitor has to refresh at least 60 times per second, do you have any idea how much ink you go through just sitting on a page without doing anything? It's astronomical.


Did you hear about the dumb blond secretary who put whiteout on the monitor?

/My flying unicorn is wired for ham radio.
//Early model.
///Volksicorn.

 
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