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    West Coast SecessionistHamilton Nolan
    8/11/14 10:40am

    So what should print do? You point out how Gawker (which gives all content away for free) is doing fine but also how giving content away hasn't worked so well for print publications. Then you have Harpers, whose poor performance you seem to blame on its paywall ("not participating" in the internet) So what's a print publication to do to succeed?

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      Hamilton NolanWest Coast Secessionist
      8/11/14 10:48am

      I think print, like many old media technologies have done in the past, will shrink a lot but not disappear. It will be a niche product. Most of the media and journalism will move online in various forms, and online media will begin making enough money to recreate (somewhat) the journalism industry that was lost in the transition from print to online.

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    hunter-worthenHamilton Nolan
    8/11/14 10:34am

    HamNo, have always loved your posts but what will you do if someday you don't work for Gawker and have to look for a job with one these publishers you skewer? Don't go changing, though. Just curious.

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      Hamilton Nolanhunter-worthen
      8/11/14 12:02pm

      I am unemployable.

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    YossarianlivesHamilton Nolan
    8/11/14 10:56am

    Hamilton, there is another reason to hate the internet, filtering out the shit. For every person like yourself, there are dozens of blogs about: cemtrails, vaccines causing autism, presidential birth certificates and countless other loads of shit.

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      Hamilton NolanYossarianlives
      8/11/14 12:37pm

      So don't read them. Just like you don't feel obligated to read every magazine on the newsstand.

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    UGAHamilton Nolan
    8/11/14 11:13am

    My personal, anecdotal (and therefore potentially incorrect) observation is that two of Harper's's (?) main competitors, The Atlantic and The New Yorker, which have "done the internet" to varying degrees (but certainly more than Harper's), have spotty quality in their online content that has brought down the perceived quality of the print editions. This is particularly true of The Atlantic, which still has some great print content, but its online material ranges from decent to crap, with a whole lot of the latter. Presumably this is based on the requirement that they put out a lot of material, but the magazine is now a lot more "mass market," which I guess is great for the bottom line, but I wonder about the long-term effect on its readership.

    I think that's really the big issue - are they going to expand their content beyond print? Harper's has a little bit on their site, but nothing close to the other two. Unless Harper's can clone Franzen and Solnit, I think it's unlikely they could match that sort of output, and I don't think they want to.

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