Continuing the saga of Why Is VeryHappy Paying So Damn Much for Home Delivery of the NYT –
I just had an on-line chat with a NYT representative. Long story short: I’ve been paying an above-normal rate for gazillion years, and they couldn’t tell me why. I complained, so they’re offering me an introductory rate for one year, then the normal rate for – who knows how long. I’ll be saving $949 over the next year, and then $429 each year after that. BUT, I will have to continue to check my rate to make sure I’m getting the one they cite online. What a scam.
Shame on me for not checking sooner.
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Think of all the households that cannot afford either paper or digital news. Children will have no idea about the various sections and value received from consuming news and info in this manner. There was a time that our local newspaper would donate newspapers to local schools - either a certain grade or something. My son is a principal in a local urban school I’ll have to ask him if newspapers have a presence in the school library or otherwise.
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Although I grew up with the Detroit Free Press delivered to our house, once I left home and even after marriage, I never bought a paper or had one delivered (too dirty). So I never developed a penchant for reading a newspaper (or watching the news), although I did subscribe to a couple of magazines. Thus, our son did not grow up with newsprint or TV news in the house. He and his dad are voracious consumers of online information, though. I am truly surprised by the number of posters who take delivery of a paper. I really thought that was uncommon now, but I have not lived in any communities in recent years that allow driveway delivery, just mailbox delivery, so I wouldn’t be aware. I just thought everyone got their information online now. Interesting thread.
DH is a Luddite. Hence, home delivery. He used to be a magazine editor and he constantly bemoans the fact that Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, et al., are shadows of their former selves.
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Sometimes I like a real paper. But gotta say with my NYT online subscriptions it’s nice that I get many (ok, sometimes too many) emails thru the day about news updates. I tend to not actually go out to the graphics version (looks like a real paper) and instead link from email into article of interest.
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In my area there seems to be a single person that deliver them all. Over the years we’ve subscribed to the regional paper and the ones above when they had specials. Around December there would be a holiday card tucked into the paper with a convenient envelope to send them a cash gift. No matter the paper it would always be addressed to the same person.
A friend who used to work in newspaper ad sales (and “used to” is quite relevant) said that back in the day ad revenue carried the paper and delivery was practically at cost in order to get the readership target promised the advertisers. But with ad revenue down so much that business model doesn’t work anymore.
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As a retired newspaper reporter, I know that we lost more subscriptions not from what we printed but because people didn’t receive the paper. We HATED getting the errant circulation call in the newsroom because people were (rightly) mad as heck.
I have not had delivery of a newspaper in literally decades. My local paper is mailed to people, so even though it’s a morning paper it’s basically afternoon delivery. I don’t know how much longer they can keep doing it, even though they are a family-owned newspaper (a rarity in itself).
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