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by bArray 2652 days ago
Those prices are ridiculous, especially in a time where we should be consuming news from a greater number of different resources, not a select few. I understand that journalists need to be paid, but this is well above and beyond - this is to feed the investors.

I remember hearing that the majority/average person in the US doesn't have $400 spare for an emergency, how on earth are they expected to be able to consume "better" media on this business model? And of course this would encourage those papers to produce material that supports the views of the people who are able to consume it, only further adding to social divides.

3 comments

> Those prices are ridiculous, especially in a time where we should be consuming news from a greater number of different resources, not a select few.

Leaving aside the comment about pricing, how do you consume more varied news than those "select few"? I read The Economist, NYT and WSJ every morning. Reading several articles (often on the same topic) across all three takes me about an hour. For a while I was trying to read Foreign Policy too but there's just not enough time.

I can only do this because I commute into the city on a relatively quiet train ride. I can't imagine adding another news source to this routine, let alone a bunch of them. What would you do, have a Monday set of sources, a Tuesday set and so on?

Many people who cannot afford a $400 due now emergency can afford $33 billed monthly for a year, even though it is very nearly the same total.

In fact, they can often afford a monthly bill where the total yearly cost is considerably more than they could afford up front.

Credit card companies make a lot of money off this difference.

The NYT is a public company. Its gross margin is 59%. Its operating margin is 11.5%. Its profit margin is 7%. And this is after the NYT grew massively after Trump got elected and isn't guaranteed to last.

Give me a break. The only true thing you said was that journalists need to be paid, and they're a massive expense.