Oh no! If we can’t figure out how to delete cookies, we’re screwed!
Read the announcement… if you’re still able to!
This article appears in Vulnerable Part 2.
Times-Standard puts the kibosh on us freeloaders
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Oh no! If we can’t figure out how to delete cookies, we’re screwed!
Read the announcement… if you’re still able to!
This article appears in Vulnerable Part 2.
11 Comments
I bought the online version of the TS and it’s bad, really bad. It’s impossible to navigate quickly. It’s just a mess. I’m going to call to get the paper edition even though I think it’s wasteful. I just cannot stand looking at their e-version. Gives me a headache…
Is it active now? I’m seeing no limit on how many news articles I can view.
I don’t buy the frigging paper copy because it’s too expensive for how little of value there is in it. Why would I pay for the on line version? Oh well, blogs and Journal it is!
It even charges if you subscribe to the paper. I understand trying to recoup some losses, but charging your subscribers twice is a huge marketing mistake.
When I subscribe to the paper, I don’t actually “own” the news; rather I’m licensing the content from the publisher. So why doesn’t that license fee get me access to the content online like it does printed on a sheet of paper? They’ve already collected the news, written it up, and not had it copy edited or spell checked, so where’s the additional cost? If they’re making the ads available for free online, they can’t even claim that it’s costing them more to keep a web server up and running to host the news. And at least with the printed copy, I have something to put in the bottom of the bird cage.
That question is the same question readers ask when they want a free e-book because they’ve purchased a printed book. You’re paying for two different products with their own production costs. Web-delivered news still requires servers, web developers, etc. for the website, and then separate costs to deliver to subscribers an electronic reproduction of the printed newspaper provided by a third-party company. Is the e-edition production cost lower than the print edition? Sure, and the e-edition subscription costs less than the print edition. But, it doesn’t make economic sense to produce a second product and then give it away for free. In that scenario, there’s little incentive to produce the second product in the first place.
So, if you find the print edition more convenient and like lining your bird cage with it when you’re done, by all means, continue subscribing to the print edition.
I liked being able to catch up on what is going on in Humboldt county where I grew up. Some things change and some things never change espeically in Humboldt County. It was very interesting reading when anyone could comment and then you had to have a facebook or twitter account just to post a cimment! SAy What !!?? Now you have to pay $59.99 just to read about pot busts and all the local skuttlebutt? No, I don’t think so! We just came home from a trip to the coast and I have a stack of unread TS, guess they will be the last I see of the TS as paying to read it is not gloing to happen. As was said earlier on their sight, there are other newspapers on line!
It was easy to remove the bookmark, and with it the last vestige of the T-S. Pay? That? For that? No thanks.
Why pay for it when I can get it free from various other sources? It’s pretty easy to bypass that annoying little pop up after my first 5 pages.
I have a subscription to the Times Standard and have had one since I was a teenager. I also like the on line version for updates and comments. Since people who buy anything in print is a shrinking market I am totally insulted that we have to pay more for the on line version. It is definitely not worth more money and it is time consuming to navigate and I will cancel my subscription and just watch the news on TV I guess.
Emily, such a move really isn’t targeting you, an existing subscriber. It targets the freeloaders. The move makes utter sense, to stop giving its product away for free. Unfortunately, they’ve chosen a method of restricting access that is easily bypassed.