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Comment by grumple | Hacker News Reader

These prices are just crazy compared to their old model. Do these papers really think they are providing as much value as Netflix (or more)? Even ignoring journalistic quality...

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Why is that so crazy to think of? My New York Times crossword subscription provides me with more value than Netflix right now.

I get a lot more value out of my Economist subscription than my Netflix one.

But the average netflix subscriber? I maybe watch one movie per week or biweekly, and netflix currently is the cheapest way to get that. Previously it was video rental at 10-20% the price, but of course I had to walk around the block and return it after watching at night, otherwise the price would be double. The internet made everything more convenient/quicker but also massively more expensive, due to the monopoly building nature it has.

Uh, I'm almost certain they see themselves as providing more value than Netflix.

The highest-brow 'orange man bad'.

Indeed, who needs an informed population when you can have an entertained one.

News is informative in the best case, but often it’s useless noise, and at worse deceptive and manipulative. Netflix has documentaries and informative shows as well as entertainment (I suspect that watchers of The Patriot Act are generally well informed, for example). There’s more to life than the latest outrage.

Personally I’ve decided that books are the best way become more informed (just like when I was a child!); news and internet sources are largely clickbait and nonsense. You feel like you’re engaged and informed, but you’re not.

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