some Newspapers are commiting suicide and they don't even know it

Warning!!! I'm gonna vent...

I was just giving a presentation to a paper and discovered that they stopped putting up full stories on their website.
They began an E-Edition, meaning there is a pdf of the actually print newspaper that they have to pay to see. They have NO other option regarding local news. It's the whole pay for content thing that the newspaper industry has been arguing about for a few years now.

There is a ton of proof that if you give the people what they want, they will come to you and you profit by having there loyal attention! Newspapers NEVER got rich from charging for there content. The ONLY reason there is a cost for the paper is to cover the cost of getting it to you. The paper, ink, machines, people who create it...all comes from ADVERTISING! If you make the people find local news from another source, they will leave you. God knows someone will give it to them for free so don't kid yourself that you will be able to pay your bills off of E-Edition subscriptions!

It's not hard to understand....you make money off of getting lots of consistent traffic to your site, i.e. MySpace, Facebook, GOOGLE...all FREE services. They are RICH and believe in a free society meaning, give the content and service for free than charge advertisers to reach that audience!

The newspaper has always and still does have a very valuable audience! They are typically employed, educated, make above avg income and live within the community!

So charge for the audience, NOT the content.

Shit!