TechCrunch has an article highlighting Marc Andreessen’s advice to Old Media to shut down their print editions and embrace the Web wholeheartedly.
We could be petty and point out that Mr. Andreessen is hardly the best candidate to be giving advice on how to survive and prosper in the face of adversity (Guess we just did 
).
However, his point is worth exploring. Especially because it’s amazing to see someone who has no interest in the good of newspapers proffer them advice.
Listening to people like Marc Andreessen is how Newspapers got in this situation in the first place
Newspapers were enticed by the Internet and Internet companies with golden promises a long time ago – give away your content and make money off of advertising, let everyone use your content and get valuable links in return, let news aggregators become the destination points for news since they’re sending you traffic, etc.
None of what was promised has materialized – advertising revenue is pitiful, newspaper content has lost a lot of its value, branding and traffic has flown to competitors and aggregators built on newspapers’ content.
Why would newspapers listen to Internet companies and Internet entrepreneurs again?
The death of newspapers is most beneficial to content sites of all types. Then all the traffic flows to online sites instead. That really is what every online blog and online site (including the one Marc Andreesen now runs) really want. They will gladly help newspapers hasten their demise. That’s why Marc Andreesen is packaging an obvious suicide pill as advice and TechCrunch is running it as an article.
Newspapers might do something stupid again – Hopefully it isn’t anything as brain-dead as listening to the same people who fooled them once.
Newspapers have to hang on to print and make it profitable
Newspapers’ only dependable, paying customers are those getting print subscriptions (and in a few cases subscribers to electronic offerings). It makes zero sense for newspapers to shut down their print editions and kill their main revenue stream.
The first thing newspapers should realize is that they have few friends. Their list of friends probably begins and ends with the twin platforms of Amazon and Apple. Everyone else just wants to exploit newspapers or kill them. The honorable ones wait. The dishonorable ones pretend to help newspapers as they sharpen their knives and wait for newspapers to turn their backs.
Newspapers only have a few options – print, subscriptions on the Internet, micro-payments on the Internet, the Kindle, the iPhone, and the iPad. They can’t afford to leave out any of these and it’s about time they stopped giving away all their content for free.
Free content encourages freeloaders and parasites and it is a disservice to paying customers – Why should actual customers pay and then suffer the insult of seeing a non-customer get the same content without paying?
First Step is to plan and execute for a worst case of current print subscribers being the only customers
Newspapers have shown an amazing aversion to efficiency and optimization. Perhaps it’s time they planned for a future where their current print subscribers are the only customers and the number reduces each year. It’s not totally out of the realm of possibility. More importantly, there are still enough print subscribers to keep a decent number of newspapers in business.
That’s the first step – stop hoping for a bailout or a messiah and build a sustainable business around your known customers.
Second Step is to kick out non-customers and parasites
A non-customer is someone who’s not paying for content. A parasite is a company or site that is using your content to make money without giving you the majority.
Newspapers need to take a hard look at their current customers and non-customers and decide whether 1 million non-paying customers are worth more than a single paying customer. It’s easy to stay in the delusion that we can trick those one million free-loaders into clicking ads and that makes them more valuable than a single paying customer.
It’s time to snap out of the illusion. Our only customers are people who pay for our products.
Third Step is to build new revenue streams in channels of good intent
Perhaps one or more of the iPhone, the iPad, and the Kindle will turn into huge revenue streams. Perhaps none of them will. Regardless of what happens they are all channels of good intent and well worth pursuing and treating well.
Newspapers are spending so much time and money and effort and psychic energy on all the freeloaders on the Internet. Yet they treat people paying $10 a month on the Kindle poorly. How does that make sense?
If these channels take off then newspapers can take a step up from the bare sustenance plan and start thinking big again.
Internet Companies, Blogs, and Websites need to stop offering advice to Newspapers
This probably includes me .
It suits Internet companies if Newspapers die. There’s no way any site or blog can deny that. When they offer advice it comes across as shamefully manipulative or hopelessly delusional. Why would a blog want to save newspapers?
Blogs should show some respect for their dying brethren
Newspapers are dying and perhaps it’s time to let them die in peace. They obviously aren’t going to trust what their competitors say and they probably don’t think enough of Blogs to consider the advice worth their time.
Why does someone who owns a network of social networks that prosper from other people’s free work care about newspapers? Why does a tech site that gets offered laptops just to write about companies care about newspapers? Are they just pretending to be the good guys? Do they want to prove they’re smart enough? Do they want to show that newspapers are stupid?
There is no rational reason for blogs to be worrying about saving newspapers. It’s time we let newspapers die or live or thrive in peace.
Filed under: publishing Tagged: | future of newspapers, lack thereof
