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Yes and no. Newspapers could be read the next day, after the original purchaser was done with it. And it was easy for a restaurant or business to share newspapers among many clients. Plus of course radio still provided free news that was quality.
The big problem now is that the best news sources are the most locked down. And the worst news sources are the most open. So it is difficult for a quality piece to make the rounds. Even if a link to an article could be shared for free, even if the website was locked down, things would be a lot better.
Finally newspapers charged for the cost of printing but made money off of advertising and classifieds. There is very little cost (per view) to digital publishing. If newspapers had embraced the Web 20 years ago they could have been Facebook or eBay, rather than having all there core revenue fall away.
If newspapers had embraced the Web 20 years ago they could have been Facebook or eBay, rather than having all there core revenue fall away.
Could you expand on this? I have a hard time imagining high quality journalism outcompeting social media, since its content is simply so much slower to produce and less entertaining.
As someone who worked IT in a newspaper around 20 years ago: Higher ups would basically laugh at you if you even mentioned web browsing or that they might want make their news more available online.
In their minds it was a fad that would come and go just like 3d movies keep doing over and over. They refused to see computers as anything beyond strictly electronic typewriters with a fancy preview. The only reason the photography department even got proper monitors and such, is because it was cheaper than having to keep developing film on-site.
They still had a few monochrome black/green monitors around 2000. And they were only replaced because it became unsuable for anything but the same text editor, since the menu options were so burned in you couldn't read the menu on other programs.
I was a young programmer during the dot com boom. Old school companies like sears and newspapers were scared of the internet. They would occasionally try something small and half hearted on the web but never really tried to figure it out.
Sears is a great example. 20 years before the web they had a functioning mail order service with stores and warehouse all over the US. They were very close to what a modern Amazon is, without the web presence or rapid delivery. If they were brave they could have been Amazon, selling online and delivering to there extensive store network.
Newspapers had a very busy classified section. That could have been moved online easily enough. But they wanted to charge for there classifieds, while eBay or Crageslist let you post for free, making money off of add revenue or a broker fee.
They also were very popular with local advertisers, and could have transitioned there newspapers online for free with the same local advertisers. Instead they tried to charge or resisted being online at all, leaving room for other services like yahoo (later Facebook and Google news) to fill in the news business.
Finally if they had been smart they could have made a news sharing service among the papers (nexus, etc) that could have forced Google news to pay a small fee every time they shared a story, providing a steady revenue service.
I see a time in the future where traditional papers fully die, and something new rises from the ashes. My guess is it will be a return to local news, but with a very small staff running the whole show online.
“Had they been brave” for Sears means axing or disincentivizing their entire income stream of a nationwide chain of mega stores in malls, etc. It’s not that what you’re saying is wrong, it’s just that these scenarios don’t happen for a reason. They would have decimated their reliable revenue streams when the time was “right” and by the time it was too late, well… no money to invest as you’re closing stores and in the red.
Don’t forget, in a lot of instances, the paper was also delivered to your house. Yes, vending machines were there, and there were news stands, but a decent amount of people had them thrown at their house every morning.