Noted crankypants Bob Garfield, co-host of On The Media, likens current consumers of (mostly free, readily-shared) online news to “looters” who “enjoy an improved standard of living.”
Writing in a Guardian op-ed section ironically titled “Comment is Free,” Garfield says that standard of living “only stays improved until the store is emptied out.”
Those consumers cheerfully using the web to sample content from all over the world via news websites, blogs and aggregators are essentially picking the inventory clean. Oh, and when they get the stuff home, the goods aren’t what they used to be. And some of the stuff has a sour smell to it.
tl;dr anyone who cares about journalism should “pray for paywalls and other subscription models to take hold.” Go read the rest. Apparently it’s not an April Fool’s joke, but a sincere rant.
* You just got excerpted and aggregated, bro.