Print newspapers use to cost what, 50c a piece? And that included an absolutely massive printing, sales and distribution infrastructure. It is preposterous that digital publishing would cost more.
I know I can trust ads that are shown on public transport or in a major printed magazine/newspaper to not be a fly-by-night scam, malware or bullshit dropshipping operation.
On the web, I know I can not trust anything because none of it is reviewed, the ads change depending on the time of day and who looks at them (targeting) and stuff like Taboola/Outbrain are running their entire business on churning out obnoxious content.
Hypothetically, this kind of advertiser wants “brand safe” context (high-quality, inoffensive, not-too-weird) but is otherwise mostly looking to reach as many people as possible in its core demographics. Figuring out if something is brand safe at the margin is pretty tough and you actually can’t trust ad exchanges for this signal, so that’s what at least some of that JS from advertisers is for. Also, “the margins” on the internet are huge, likely most of the page. Internet has not done well here, traditionally.
These advertisers traditionally loved primetime TV and glossy magazines, with high production values and usually safe content. A surprising amount of this brand money is still in traditional linear TV advertising, despite the fact that most key demos have already given up on linear TV.
The way to bring back advertisement to newspapers is to use antitrust rules and to start taxing search engines and social networks. When Facebook or Google runs an ad for my local gym, it is taxed in some remote tropical island (where it's usually not taxed at all). When my local newspaper runs the same ad, it's taxed locally. Basically, where I see the ad.
I don't like advertisement in newspapers more than the next guy but that was how our democracy worked. News media got paid. With that money they could do journalism. Now, most of that money goes to a handful of companies that do very little to keep a check on politicians.
That's quite amazing. Then what was the whole point of going online (broadly speaking), if not to decrease delivery cost of articles?
To chase the audience that had gone online. The newspapers were loosing customers to other sites that could produce articles cheaply themselves or republish newswire stories or rely on content from users and didn't have the overhead of a traditional newspaper
Hm. So you are saying going online decreases costs? Can't have it both ways...
Why would I read the newspaper that comes in a few weeks when I can get instant information online?
Why would I wait for the town crier to come through in a few days when I can get instant information from this "news-paper"
Why would I wait until Sunday afternoon at the cathedral to get the town news when we're all assembled together in the middle ages when the town crier is coming past later this week?
Developers may cost more, but you only need a handful of them for a set period of time and you can build a very simple platform if you don't chase fads (no SPA, no Kubernetes/microservices, no overpriced cloud providers). That is a one-time cost vs ongoing cost of delivery for a physical paper.
There was a submission on here recently about how Remoteok.io runs on a PHP and jQuery (and a very small server behind it according to the comments) and manages to bring around 40k/month.
I assure you (given that I used to work for one of the largest news organisations in Sweden) that there is no such thing as a simple platform when it comes to news. Sure on the front it is "just" a website.
Then of course there is the subscription backends, the systems that calculate how many print papers to send to _each_ little store in the whole country, the system that people write in (regardless if you write your own you still have to have it interface with your backend, and don't forget you need to have a way for your person on the fronline in syria to publish as well), many organisations now have video which is another whole beast. Etc, etc.
Now you might not like it and just want to have just text (I'm many ways I'm with you there) but it's a lot more to having a digital newspaper than you might imagine.
Nope. Ad CPMs in the print era were an order of magnitude higher than today. All of the shady online advertising tactics are an effort to improve CPMs and eke out something resembling a functioning business model. Removing those tricks just means making less money, for businesses who are already barely surviving.
Print newspapers used to cost 50c because of the classified section. Online news didn't kill the newspaper business - Craigslist, Zillow and Monster did.