I did it, really did it. After years of subverting the system, I bit the bullet last week and subscribed to my top two favorite newspapers online; I am toying with a third.
One would think in my field of work I would not have so religiously resisted subscribing to what I had gotten for free for so long, but like countless others I know, paying for digital news was something I found distasteful without realizing why.
I am an admitted national and world news junkie. I don’t engage in traditional time stealers; last year I began downsizing my Facebook time to zero, and you will not catch the television on in my home or office unless there is a national crisis. But except for print editions of Lumina News and the Wilmington daily delivered, I take my news digitally from New York, Washington and London several times per day.
The adversity to paying for digital news has long been a conundrum in America. How do newspaper publishers get readers to pay for news they read but are accustomed to receiving for free.
Few would argue the popularity of online news developed into the phenomenon it is because readers hoped to avoid the cost of purchasing printed newspapers. Rather, the phenomenon is a result of the craving of access to news as it happens — that desire for a constant feed of breaking news, and opinion worldwide.
But let’s be honest: the addiction to news as it happens arouses the Gladys Kravitz in all of us. The quintessential, overly curious neighbor also typifies our hard-to-hold attention span. I am no exception.
My conversion to online subscriptions is an abrupt and surprisingly liberating change for me. Actually paying for digital subscriptions occurred a few days after a casual conversation with Wrightsville’s mayor. I had asked him about his digital readership on the eve of his 10-day island holiday. He said he would be reading LuminaNews.com online while away. Curious to what other papers he might read, I inquired. Plus, I asked, did he pay for any digital subscriptions? He surprised me by replying, “no,” and like many of us, when he has read the maximum number of free articles a month on any one newspaper site, he moves on to another newspaper, or another computer and email address. Anything to avoid paying.
Why?
It might surprise some to learn the cost of online daily premium news subscriptions averages 3 bucks a week after the first few weeks at 99 cents. Now seriously, that is less than what those who drink coffee-shop coffee pay for one cup of the caffeine-laden beverage of choice. Redbull over the counter is a bit less; a bag of potato chips is generally more.
So it is not the actual cost that puts the brakes on. It is something deeper. Something more basic, like the mania with free parking; it’s the refusal to pay for what you feel entitled to.
A sense of entitlement is a negative, no matter what its application. Defined it is: the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. And, the feeling or belief that you deserve to be given something (such as special privileges). Synonyms are Right (to), Power, Prerogative, Due, Title (to), Privilege, and Claim (to).
Years ago we ran into the same stubborn refusal our readers experienced when we obtained our periodicals permit. Lumina News switched from a free tabloid to a paid broadsheet format, at a mere 25 cents per copy. Still, readers staggered away in droves. One local octogenarian publically proclaimed he’d not pay for what he’d been given free for seven years; instead he’d read us online! Many other readers went the way of the Internet and didn’t return to print, although like the mayor, they know where to ferret out a free copy, despite the sticker price at the Harris Teeter counter, and they almost brag about it.
Seriously, we are talking about 25 cents here!
Tight readers put newspapers, a constantly declining industry, in a tighter spot. How can we deliver accurate, well-reported news, that is well-illustrated and on time, in two formats — one paid and one free — but both with a high cost to produce. It is a business model doomed to fail.
Joining thousands of other newspapers around the country, the Wilmington daily bit the bullet and went to digital subscriptions two years ago this spring. This allowed it to upgrade its digital platform.
The 24-dollar question right now: will my recent subscriptions to daily papers in New York and Washington result in implementing digital subscriptions for LuminaNews.com? That question cannot be answered today, but I feel certain holding out is not a smart business plan. At this point, holding out is just a delay of the inevitable.
Would such a change cause even a ripple in the world as we know it? Highly doubtful.
Would Lumina News digital readers remain faithful at a cost of pennies a day? Only time will tell.
We’d love to hear what you think.
