Monday, May 12, 2003
The Independent has got this foolish idea that it can charge for some of the content on it's site. Main news is free, but opinion pieces and columnists are now in the 'Portfolio' where you pay £1 per article for 24 hours, or subscriptions between £5 and £60.
Now, they've already changed this once, as when they started it was £1 per article, so Internet users were paying almost double the cost of the whole newspaper for one article therein. But how many people, like me, are now going to forego the delight of reading Mark Steel columns every Thursday because they don't want to fork out £30 a year for it? It would be cheaper to buy the paper each week. Or use my local library of course.
Now, they've already changed this once, as when they started it was £1 per article, so Internet users were paying almost double the cost of the whole newspaper for one article therein. But how many people, like me, are now going to forego the delight of reading Mark Steel columns every Thursday because they don't want to fork out £30 a year for it? It would be cheaper to buy the paper each week. Or use my local library of course
