I grew up with a father who always insisted on keeping huge stacks of copies of the New York Times all around our apartment – some of them decades old! – and refused to throw them out until he had fully read them (meaning never), which drove my mother to absolute distraction, and gave me a strong phobia for keeping stacks of unread newspapers. Of course once I was a working adult I never had time to read the Times completely, so even though I subscribed, I usually ended up throwing all of them out unread after a couple of weeks. So I was very pleased when it became available online, and canceled my subscription to the paper version many years ago. I’m happy to pay for an online subscription, since I read at least a few articles just about every day. (Plus, you get full access that way to the word-searchable Times archive of every issue going back to 1851, which is often very useful for doing family history research. Not that most of my ancestors or other relatives rated a lot of mentions in the Times, but you’d be surprised at the things that used to be published, such as long lists of people who had rented apartments in the previous week – including my great-aunt Fannie, renting an apartment with her sisters on 98th St. back in 1937!)
Wellspring, you’re not alone. I still read the NYT and my local paper every day, in their native, original forms. There’s something multi-sensual about reading a newspaper - the feel of the pages, the eye-catching jewelry ads on pages 2 & 3 of the NYT…When I read the online versions of the same articles, the news doesn’t stick with me the same way. I also need a good crossword puzzle to start my day.