This is just my opinion, but things change. Change is not necessarily bad.
If smaller newspapers cannot make it, it means they don't offer a good enough service to justify their existence. If they were good and provided value, people would pay for it (like they do the NYT).
Given the dismal quality of many small publications--possibly caused by the need to bring people via search engines--I welcome replacing them with independent content creators. Independent content creators often make even a lot of money via Patreon because people like their content and support them, and often the quality and level of knowledge is 100 times better than small publications that are only interested in clicks.
For instance, see the coverage of solar roadways, Hyperloop and many other science-related topics by specialized publications vs. the debunking videos made by youtuber Thunderf00t. While those publications will just have interns write copycat articles to bring in clicks, he's an actual scientist that looks into/debunks the topics at hand with a unique point of view, and actually covers the news critically. I'd much rather give him $5/mo. to keep producing good content then the "professional" newspaper $0.50/mo. to read their crappy content or even worse be bombarded by ads if I visit their website.
Of course, independent content creators will not take a plane to go cover a war or cannot afford to spend 2 years without publishing an article to do investigative journalism, but I think those publications that provide that value gets recognized by people and those will rightfully stay alive.
Nor will independent content creators for the most part go to a lot of boring town and city meetings to find out what's going on--or develop relationships with the various low level officials/administrators. A number of years back my town had a local newspaper that was basically someone's labor of love. It no longer has one so I have essentially no source of information about any town issues I might want to be aware of. That doesn't matter to me for the most part but it would be nice to know about happenings/votes/etc. that affect me.
I think that's key. When people really care they are the ones who ask the product/project/service how they can support them.
The truth might be that people don't value reading most articles. I know that starting a newspaper is a huge investment, but I guess people just don't care. It might be because we don't have time to read, we get "news" from Facebook, no idea--but that much seems to be true.
“If smaller newspapers cannot make it, it means they don't offer a good enough service to justify their existence. If they were good and provided value, people would pay for it (like they do the NYT).”
I don’t think so. What happens is that the price would be too low to overcome the mental barrier of whipping out a wallet to pay for yet another recurring service, something people are only willing to do for larger websites.
We currently do not have a good solution for this. It’s weird to see so many HNers act like it’s a good thing that only large websites like NYT have a real business model once ads completely die. Or how Reddit will outlive individual forums because nobody is going to pay per forum.
But unless something changes, that’s going to be the reality soon.
> I don’t think so. What happens is that the price would be too low to overcome the mental barrier of whipping out a wallet to pay for yet another recurring service, something people are only willing to do for larger websites.
Why does the price have to be low? You can pay yearly, for instance.
However, the main point I was trying to make is that with Patreon people voluntarily contribute $1, $5 or whatever. It hasn't been a problem and it's done every day.
If you're not willing to put up with "whipping out a wallet for yet another recurring service", it means you don't value the product.
Again, I don't even think it's the size of the website because many community-supported projects are 1 solo content creator.
If smaller newspapers cannot make it, it means they don't offer a good enough service to justify their existence. If they were good and provided value, people would pay for it (like they do the NYT).
Given the dismal quality of many small publications--possibly caused by the need to bring people via search engines--I welcome replacing them with independent content creators. Independent content creators often make even a lot of money via Patreon because people like their content and support them, and often the quality and level of knowledge is 100 times better than small publications that are only interested in clicks.
For instance, see the coverage of solar roadways, Hyperloop and many other science-related topics by specialized publications vs. the debunking videos made by youtuber Thunderf00t. While those publications will just have interns write copycat articles to bring in clicks, he's an actual scientist that looks into/debunks the topics at hand with a unique point of view, and actually covers the news critically. I'd much rather give him $5/mo. to keep producing good content then the "professional" newspaper $0.50/mo. to read their crappy content or even worse be bombarded by ads if I visit their website.
Of course, independent content creators will not take a plane to go cover a war or cannot afford to spend 2 years without publishing an article to do investigative journalism, but I think those publications that provide that value gets recognized by people and those will rightfully stay alive.