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1/Does a paper boy (girl) pay for delivering a paper?Or do publishers pay them to deliver it?They get a pay cheque for delivering the paper.They don't give part of their pay cheque back to publishers for delivering their paper.They profit from delivering your paper.
2/Internet companies provide a platform, at their expense to deliver your papers (articles). They profit from advertising dollars. Just like publishers used to. And still do. They still advertise. They may not profit from their advertising because of archaic business models ...
3/and because of a refusal to adopt quickly enough to a digital platform. Liken it to Blockbuster! Consumers in Canada especially, pay big dollars for internet access. Now publishers want govt to legislate media costs to the providers of SM platforms.
4/Do you believe those costs will not be passed on to consumers? On top of that, publishers paywall their articles with another cost. When the companies start paying you for your content, are you going to remove all paywalls to consumers? I doubt it.
5/Blockbuster could have been the Netflix of today, had they had vision and the will to embrace the ever changing world. Publishers of today would do themselves well to learn from their mistake and look for solutions other than charge somebody else for their lack of vision and...
6/inability to change. You felt threatened. What was your first response? Throw up paywalls. Didn't work the way you wanted though. Consumers resent and most will not pay. Regardless whether they get your news. Many Canadians cannot afford to pay additional costs when just their-
7/internet access alone is well over a hundred a month. What is happening though is many small digital publishers (yes, even bloggers) are getting noticed and actually surviving in this digital world. Actually making money. Actually publishing credible fact based news.
8/Actually growing. Actually developing credible reputations. Existing big media ignores them, tries to discredit them. If anything, they will be your future threat. And you are far too blinded to even see it. You insist on holding on to the past, failed business models and rely-
9/on litigation and government lobbying to gain revenue. You refuse to de-politicise your publications, you turn your publications into partisan journals. You isolate large sectors of the population when you do that. Sectors that will never read or contribute to your product....
10/because of it. You now rely on "opinion" based articles which have no bearing in fact, many downright false and misleading. But, it's ok.They are only a persons opinion. We no longer have to publish facts or do investigative reporting. We can just say whatever we want because-
11/it is just some persons opinion. Not sure how all this will shake itself out but perhaps Canadian Media, the survivors of it, will have been willing to be the pioneers moving forward. Most of what we are seeing right now fighting the very platforms they base their survival on-
