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When no one wants to buy your product, rent seek off your competition!

David Leigh thinks that broadband needs to be taxed to keep him in his job at The Guardian:

A £2-a-month levy on broadband could save our newspapers. Proceeds could be distributed based on UK online readership and reinvested to protect great journalism

In case you do not know (and why should you in this age of a multiplicity of news sources?), The Guardian is a very pro-statist dead tree newspaper. I was going to explain what I thought of this notion but I will instead just quote the first commenter I saw who replied, someone calling themselves ‘romandavid’:

A £2-a-month levy on automobiles could save our horse and cart business.

Quite. Moreover I have looked over some articles by David Leigh and it is unclear where this ‘great journalism’ is that so desperately needs protection. It is bad enough we have to pay for the crap on the BBC whether we watch it or not.

14 comments to When no one wants to buy your product, rent seek off your competition!

  • CaptDMO

    Well gee, does The Guardian have comics, crosswords, and a daily woman-with-huge-boobs page?

    Oh wait. Is all that available on “the net” for free?

    Is it coincidental that the Sunday New York Times (way thick, and way overpriced) ran a piece (well, rightfully)bemoaning the wasted electricity on keeping internet/web and FULLY MONITORABLE “cloud” data centers running, including the back-up generators when the precious electrical grid, OBVIOUSLY meant to recharge hand held pieces of crap for “accessing” NYT content?

    Yep, despite those bird killing wind mills, “hydro” whose resivoirs tilt the natural axis of the earth (climate change?) and daytime solar panels, when will those luddites learn that what they have evovled journalism and news to imply just can’t keep up with what folks lyin’ eyes will believe, from hand held, eye witness, worldwide photos, in 15-20 seconds.

    I understand that chopped up newspaper, mixed with various Borax solutions, and molded into new shapes, will make a suitable flame/insect resistant insulation material against the impending Earth cooling period.

    You know, those cold nights when all those solar hot water panels on the roof are covered with snow, and the wind mills are rendered inoperable by rime. (wind blasted ice)

    PS, The US has waaaaay more coal than new castle. Soot coated snow/ice melts a LOT faster than the brilliant white type. The Guardian, like the NYT, will prove to be worthy of it’s price (at half the cost) as kindling and high fiber/non-nutritional hunger suppressive.

  • Slartibartfarst

    Well put by @CaptDMO.

    I at first thought the Guardian article was a joke, but apparently no. They just seem to want to replicate the BBC forced tax model. That is a Statist approach to protecting the Establishment’s official organ – media used to communicate the Establishment’s propaganda and version of events and history. The Guardian would seem to be jockeying into position to become an official State-sponsored organ.

    No need to think, people. We’ll tell you what to think, because we are the official arbiters and providers of “great journalism” – because we say so. Oh, and by the way, you are going to be forced to pay us whilst we push our sewage down your throats. Have a nice day.

    Bollocks.

    There’s coincidentally an interesting and relevant post by Gary North:
    Digital Technologies vs. Truth Suppression(Link)

  • Sigh,

    We got the same meme here in the Land of Oz too.

    Quality Journalism = Fairfax Media – A pack of leftist organs being nudged into oblivion. State handouts being the ever increasingly touted solution.

    That this journey to nowhere is partly powered by the state financed leftist ABC handing free content to the same target audience passes them by.

    That reducing state financing to the ABC might help save Fairfax is outside their worldview.

  • I suppose he’s never read the candlemakers’ petition against the sun. . . .

  • Runcie Balspune

    In next week’s article: greedy bankers are being paid huge sums of money for doing very little, and receiving taxpayer hand outs.

    Science section: relative dark matter observation in cast iron cookware.

  • auralay

    CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!
    “…distributed based on UK online readership …”
    So the Sun would get about 100 times as much as the G. And imagine if Guido could get himself registered as a newspaper!

  • Ian Bennett

    I wonder why the death of quality newspapers should worry The Guardian.

  • Johnathan Pearce

    A friend of mine, Tom Winnifrith,(Link) puts the idea into the shredder

  • RAB

    I have met Leigh, god what a self satisfied smug self righteous little prat. He thinks he’s George Orwell when he’s more like George Formby.

    And why the hell 1994?

  • RRS

    There is a much broader “picture” to consider.

    There is probably something similar going on in the U K at the BBC that compares to what has been happening to “Network” TV in the U S. Now huge drop-offs have begun in cable networks as well.

    BBC radio is probably atrophying since it has nothing like “talk radio” of the U S.

    Whatever “journalism” is supposed to connote, it has generally disintegrated into forms of waging influence, or, in a few cases, seeking pre-eminence.

    There are simply too many wordsmiths, even on the internet. So, the maintenance costs have to be minimized, which the internet does, which other media, print and visual (& radio in most nations) do not.

    Look what has come of “streaming” broadcasts over the WWW (especially classical music – left forlorn by “Idols” of the visual media).

    And, the money-spinner – advertising; the monetizer of so much; it too now takes a different course to either entice or inform.

    Unfortunately, with modern plumbing, the Guardian, NYT and similar print media do not even qualify for the former uses made of older Sears catalogues. Perhaps, with better paper technology they could, but the medium would then match the value of the content.

  • RRS

    Sorry –

    That last should have read:

    . . . but the medium would then match the value and utility of the content.

  • Surellin

    If dead trees are part of your business plan you had better be a carpenter.

  • Rich Rostrom

    This is not an absolutely ridiculous notion.

    For one thing, unlike the BBC model, the funds collected don’t go to a particular favored entity – they would be “earned” by the recipients based on readership.

    The model is nonetheless fundamentally flawed, because there is no truly reliable way to measure page views, and also because many British sites get traffic from non-British readers. Page3.com is pretty popular with Americans, I think. And the Daily Mail now has an “American” edition of their website which loads if the reader’s IP address is in the U.S.

  • Paul Marks

    It is comforting when the logic of the universe is confirmed.

    Evil people (such as the Guardianistas) suggesting an evil thing (a special tax to fund their wickedness).

    The logic of the universe is confirmed.

    I am comforted.