The hard copy newspaper is also good for older people with memory issues. When ours switched from daily to 3xweek an elderly parent of a co-worker said “but how will I know what day it is now?” She relied on having the newspaper around to tell her. That was something I would not have considered.
Agree with the elderly having issues/not capable of using technology! Many of my co-workers’ parents (70s-80s) can barely operate a remote.
We just renewed our newspaper subscription. We were billed $400+ for 6 days a week delivery (online only for Saturday) and online for all 365 days. Last year it was $270 + we gave $30 tip.
I called and spoke to customer service and they were able to find me a rate of $197 for the year, which I promptly wrote a check for and included a $30 tip for carrier who delivers.
It pays to be the squeaky wheel! It’s the only paper we currently subscribe to as I don’t want to support Murdock!
Every year the local paper sends an annual bill that goes up (this year it was for $412) and every year I call and end up with a reasonable price (this year $238). Delivery has been very reliable; we get two papers (husband’s print WSJ (something like $500). I like having a physical paper even if I could read it digitally.
I also get the Seattle Times digitally since son lives there. Every three months I go online and pretend to cancel and get offered 99 cents a month for three months. They make it very convenient! Husband continually looks for digital deals for the Chicago Tribune even though we’ve been gone for ten years.
I just wish husband would recycle his papers instead of saving them in huge stacks - in case there’s something he meant to read and didn’t . One dining room chair is dedicated to that, plus a few bags in the garage (!!). I told him he’s a hoarder.
When the kids were growing up and days were more harried, we had a paper delivered to the house daily. It was like my daily vitamin - I couldn’t go to bed without reading it. The kids liked it too. My son even at a very young age loved reading the sports section and of course they loved the Sunday comics. It was reading material around the house. And that is good!
I wonder if kids take advantage of any family DIGITAL subscriptions. The paper was an important reading tool in our house.
My S is happy to have access to the digital version of our HI paper and I believe he reviews it periodically. We all share the same digital version. He has enjoyed reading the paper since he was in grade school. D doesn’t seem to enjoy it as much.
I’m not sure the high cost of home delivery of physical newspapers is predatory, I think it’s an unfortunate effect of the decline readership of newspapers in general and the lower cost of online publishing. Sadly, it’s really hard on the older readers.
I subscribed to a paper published in my hometown area for years. But it became very expensive while the local news coverage became thinner and thinner. I can go to the website but everything is behind paywalls including local obituaries.
My 87 year old mom doesn’t know how to play the game of calling up and negotiating the price of the paper. So she ended up paying the very high rate that I suspect very few end up paying.
She doesn’t know how to sign up online. Make an account and be able to manage online. She doesn’t have that capability anymore.
She’s the generation that reads the physical newspaper. I wish the process was more straightforward
I wish the process was more straightforward, too. I had several friends tell me they were able to negotiate a lower rate with the WaPo. I tried and no luck. Even after decades of being a subscriber, as mentioned above, when I quietly unsubscribed after 40 years, I never heard from them.
Maybe I’m just not a good negotiator. But there should just be one non negotiable rate.
We used to get home delivery of the Boston Globe and The NY Times for years. The subscription price just kept going up and the folks who delivered the papers (same group delivered both papers along with the Wall Street Journal) would bring the papers late in the day or not at all. Sometimes the papers were in the driveway, other times in the grass. A few times the paper was left on the other side of our street. We switched to the digital version of both papers. We still get our small town paper, which comes out weekly. You can get a paper (by mail) or read online. Everything that happens in town is in there and one favorite feature is the police blotter–which is sometimes comical. Example:
An XYZ Road resident called saying there might be minks or rodents in her home. The call was referred to the animal control officer.
Well, it appears I need to call the NYT. I posted above that I pay over $1500 for seven-day-a-week delivery; it’s actually $1,469. Yet when I look up how to order it, as a regular person, it says $20 per week – which would be only $1,040. Yeah, I get all sorts of digital access too, but that comes with the print subscription, as far as I know.
I miss reading an actual newspaper. Especially the Sunday paper. The cost kept going up and up. But I kept seeing a much lower rate for new subscriptions. I would cancel for a while and then re-subscribe. Or call and say I was going to cancel and they’d offer a lower rate. Finally I got fed up with their tactics and cancelled. I don’t even have a digital subscription.
Nothing burns me up more than a low rate for “new subscribers” not being offered to long-long-long term customers. Ugh. Another reason why I cancelled my print subscription.
And yes, older folks don’t “get” the whole game of calling in to negotiate a better rate. Which is another version of the above…
A year ago I heard a talk by a former editor of the NYT’s. He said one of the main issues with cost and making newsprint available is greater areas, is the limited printing sources. Most California papers get printed in Nevada and then transported in the middle of the night. The Noston Globe might be getting printed in Rhode Island.
We do have home delivery and I do love the ritual of sitting reading the paper but the E subscription version is also a great option.. At some point, we won’t have choices- it will only be digital.
I love getting a print edition of the newspaper from time to time; as a kid I used to spend time pouring over the paper and it was a morning ritual. Last week I grabbed a copy of the Boston Globe at the supermarket, and it was $4 for a weekday paper…I put it back. Too much for me to spend for a bit of nostalgia
Our small town doesn’t have a newspaper. We get the small city’s newspaper which is about 40 miles away. I just recently renewed it for $198 per year. It comes 5 days a week, Tuesday through Saturday. It does have an online feature which I occasionally use. The paper is getting much thinner. It actually comes through the mail. Therefore, I don’t have to tip the delivery person. We tend to read the paper the next day at breakfast.
We also get the Wall Street Journal digitally. There is definitely more to read in it.