Newspaper Dinosaurs Make Their Case: The Internet is Killing the Internet

by Jack Humphrey on Sep 29

Anissa sent me this one on Gawker about how some in the newspaper industry are not only claiming the internet is killing their industry, but it is killing itself as well.

Too much for free, too many people wanting everything else to be free that is currently not, and web surfers’ extreme intolerance for ads and ad supported sites.  Supposedly.

What do you think about the article?  Do you believe the internet is only profitable for very large businesses?

Tagged as: making money online, newspaper industry, newspapers, old media

  • http://www.paultherond.com Coolest Guy in New Zealand

    I do feel that larger businesses have the ability to really dominate their markets using the Internet but at the same time small businesses have never before had such opportunity to connect with people and build their own brands using online medium.

    However the saturation of the Internet is now calling for more creativity, which has generally been a strong point of smaller businesses. And categorically no I don’t feel Youtube should be used as the basis for mass hysteria over the demise of e-marketing. Youtube is a flawed business model, as simple as that! It could maybe benefit from having some entrepreneurial inspiration breathed into it…

  • http://aplawrence.com Tony Lawrence

    I cover my operating costs and then some.

    It won’t change my life if YouTube disappears. People can put videos on their own sites, right?

    Newspapers are dying and they are going to whine about it until they are completely gone.

  • http://www.therawdealblog.com Luis Guajardo

    it’s true, the whole print industry is suffering and dying a slow death. and i agree with the others that they will whine until they are dead and buried. and good for them…at least they aren’t going to die without a fight.

    but in response to their claim that the internet is killing the internet…it’s called evolution. if the internet was to have stayed in the same state it was during the .com boom…it’d be like a human being stuck at the age of 10 for the rest of their life. myspace came along…it was the hottest thing on the planet…until facebook came along. now it’s one of the hottest thing of the planet.

    well guess what people…there will be the next hottest thing on the planet. evolution does not just apply to animals and plants…the fittest survive. the internet isn’t killing itself…its exponentially evolving.

    we should be happy about this. as mentioned above…the world has never been able to connect with each other like this. we used to have to rely on libraries for information, one-on-one conversations, and newspapers and magazines that are outdated the moment they come off the press.

    i dont know about the rest of the world, but i’m excited to see what tomorrow holds…but i’ll be over the next day ready for the next brilliant idea ;-)

    • http://www.jackhumphrey.com/ Jack Humphrey

      @luis – great point. Their “tell” is that they are using YouTube as their example. Doesn’t that kind of show how far behind they really are? They think YouTube is the current big thing. We’ve all been there, done that for a couple years now.

      The easiest thing in the world to do on the web is point out problems and failures. That’s most of the sites on the web. If we used that as a measure of success, we’d have all given up on the web a long time ago and gone back to reading print on dead trees.

  • http://www.NarekGabrielyan.com Narek Gabrielyan

    I personally think that this is a transition period. however, I’m not sure was going to happen next. Even if the big businesses make the most money online there is always going to be a window of opportunity for the small guy. As the environment changes, those who adjust to the new environment will survive. Most likely, the small businesses are going to be able to adjust faster due to their size.

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