Future of Papers

Matt: Taking one step back to the newspapers, my impression was that newspapers got all their money from the advertisements, and that people buying newspapers basically paid for the paper, like the actual printing and maybe the delivery. That the actual cost, that any money they make was through advertisements so I don't see how that's any different than if they just had it online where they would get rid of all those costs of delivery and the paper and the printing and then just still have the same advertisement so I don't understand why they can't make that transition more smoothly.

Rachel: And actually I heard that they get more money from online advertising than from the print advertising so, yeah, I don't know really know why it matters come to think of it.

Matt: I'm sure that the newspaper will go the way of the Dodo fairly soon.

Rachel: Yeah, yeah.

Matt: But again, why is it that people will accept that but not books?

Rachel: Cause I think ... I can handle a small article, like one page on screen, but I'm not for a long time. I can't read the same like. And also with news you just want to flick through it. You don't really ... you don't use it to relax.

Matt: That's true. That's true. It's usually more active.

Rachel: Yeah, whereas with a book you can read in the bath, or you could read it on the bed, or just ... it's a pleasurable sort of thing rather than a "OK, I've got to do this to be ..."

Matt: Up with current events.

Rachel: Yeah.

Matt: Yeah, actually, and one nice feature about reading news online and that I've noticed lately when I went to the, I shouldn't say names, but the BBC web site and so I was reading an article. Recently in the news, they were talking about Iran and the elections and things like that, and they mentioned a lot of names of different positions in the government, and on the side was all of these links to background information about those people and about those positions and about the government and the structure of the government and it was really fun to be able to go through it and learn quite a bit quite quickly about the government system in Iran and and that kind of thing. That's much better than a newspaper where you read it and go, "Ooh, where's my encyclopedia?"

Rachel: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, I did a similar thing with a report about Iran, and then looking at people who are campaigning against the government and I was like, "I don't know these people. But who are they?" and there was a link and I could find out about more which was cool.

Matt: Yeah, it's nice. It's nice. Yeah. So ...

Rachel: The death of the newspaper.

Matt: The death of the newspaper. I think it's inevitable.

Rachel: The book still survives.

Matt: Let's keep the books. I like that.