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Comment by cstejerean | Hacker News Reader

I hope more newspapers follow their lead. Printing paper editions daily sounds inefficient and wasteful. By the time the morning newspaper hits the streets everyone already heard about the news on TV or read about it online. I expect daily print to go away as we get better choices for reading news on the go and more people start using Kindles, netbooks, iPhones, etc.

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It's not as clear-cut-wasteful as you might assume. I wondered about this when I read your line and mused on whether newspapers or websites are more wasteful. Here's a Slate article I dug out:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=346912

I like the interface of reading certain things in physically better than online. This includes, for example, the New York Times as well as Edge Magazine.

I think it will be a while before non-PC devices are the primary way people get their electronic news (at least five years).

With books, yes. With newspapers, no. I know that with some people, it's a ritual, but I can't imagine doing the flip and fold and flip and fold and wrinkle and crumple and cuss and tear routine with a newspaper on the subway or bus; instead, I just hold my phone up and read the news.

The runaway success of the iPhone should open the way for handheld internet readers to become a part of everyday life for more than just gadget geeks.

5 years sounds reasonable. Given that it took them 2 years to plan this out (that's how I read the article at least) this would be a good time for others to start thinking about this. Also given the cost savings of not having to print daily it might be worth it for many newspapers to switch much sooner (say by 2010).

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