April 24, 2007

More or less

Canada’s “National Newspaper,” The Globe and Mail, launched its new design on Monday. It’s smaller and carries fewer hard news stories, but more features. As is usually the case in matters like this, there’s no reduction in price, even though I’m getting less for the investment.

I closed down the old Piper & Drummer magazine because it just didn’t make sense. It was too expensive to produce, too cumbersome to coordinate, and too slow to distribute. In the end, it cost about $30 a year for four issues.

The new pipes|drums costs $9.99 for the year, and there is actually far more regular, new content than the print magazine ever had. After about six months, I’d say there’s already twice as much as what the quarterly magazine could produce in a year.

And yet I hear stories about people filching subscriptions from their friends because they’re too cheap to shell out the $9.99. Never mind that all proceeds go back into the site or to worthwhile piping causes.

Further, while something like The Globe and Mail charges just as much for less, pipes|drums charges less for much more.

Go figure.

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