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After I was tellingly you a few days ago how much electronic magazines are so great on tablets, what about the other recurring written publication, the newspapers?

Now, much had been already told about the plight of the newspapers in the world of the Internet, where news is replicated infinitely, at no cost, to all the world. If you consider newspapers to be of value only for the “news” aspect, I wonder if they are still worth it. But if they can be seen as “daily magazines” that focuses on investigative reporting, fact-finding, analysis and opinion columns, then I think they are still worth it.

The problem I personally have with newspapers, compared to monthly, weekly or bi-weekly magazines, is just their staggering size. If I had to dutifully read a newspaper to make the expense worthwhile, then I would end up will little time left to read much else. So paying more for an electronic version of a newspaper (compared to its paper form) for something I have little time to read would mean I would waste money. As an example, the New York Times, with “full access” on my iPhone and iPad, would cost me $35 a month, or even still roughly $15 a month on my iPad only. Compared to that, PressReader would give me access to nearly all other newspapers in the world for $30 a month.

If you like newspapers, then you should go with PressReader. Until they realize that gouging casual readers won’t work in the long term, and that things like PressReader or Zinio are the way to go for digital distribution, I won’t pity newspapers that fold due to myopic business practices.