Americans simply must have free news free all the time without ever paying anything for it ever; it’s true–ask Harper’s web editor, Paul Ford: “sometimes people say YOU ARE THE STUPIDEST WEBSITE IN STUPIDTOWN BECAUSE I WANT EVERYTHING FREE RIGHT NOW!”
If you follow the link behind Paul Ford, you find the following:
Paul: So, for strangers to harpers.org, if you want to read the current issue of the magazine–the one on newsstands–you have to be a subscriber, which costs $16.97 a year.
Choire: That is outrageous.
Paul: IT IS INSANITY! It is the END OF THE INTERNET AS WE KNOW IT!
But what Harper's does not tell you is how stupid their own policy is. You see, I live in Europe and actually wanted to pay Harpers because I read them so much. So I wrote their subscription service an e-mail asking if I could simply have online access for $16.97 a year with no paper copy being sent; subscriptions to Europe cost around three times as much, and I do not need it in the mail.
The answer from the subscription service was no.
So here you have a journal complaining about how readers don't want to pay, but they do not even allow you to pay for Internet access without a copy in the mail. They therefore do not get any money from me, and I do not get full access. This is how they want it.
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