Now, every English-language newspaper is in direct competition with every other. Millions of Americans get their news online from The Guardian, which is published in London. This competition, and not some kind of petulance or laziness or addled philosophy, is what keeps readers from shelling out for news.온라인 뉴스의 '경쟁' 문제를 적절히 지적하고 있다. 그리고 이 강화된 경쟁/공급과잉이 독자들의 지불의사를 막고 있다고 주장하고 있다.
그의 주장 중 압권은 앞부분에 적은 다음이다.
Newspaper readers have never paid for the content (words and photos). What they have paid for is the paper that content is printed on. A week of The Washington Post weighs about eight pounds and costs $1.81 for new subscribers, home-delivered. With newsprint (that’s the paper, not the ink) costing around $750 a metric ton, or 34 cents a pound, Post subscribers are getting almost a dollar’s worth of paper free every week — not to mention the ink, the delivery, etc. The Times is more svelte and more expensive. It might even have a viable business model if it could sell the paper with nothing written on it. A more promising idea is the opposite: give away the content without the paper. In theory, a reader who stops paying for the physical paper but continues to read the content online is doing the publisher a favor.이 부분을 읽으니 그의 글의 제목을 이해할 수 있겠다. "You Can't Sell News by the Slice".
즉 뉴스/기사를 낱개로 판매하자는 Isaacson의 주장에 조금은 황당한 논리로 반격하고 있는 것이다.
Posted by 강정수 @npool
