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Dutch Gov. Wants To Tax Online Media To Fund Print
Godefricus writes "Outrage ensued among Dutch techie and media websites, after a government report advised that the dwindling print media industry should be financially supported by the online industry (Google translation; Dutch original here). The idea is to help the old media fund 'innovative initiatives.' The suggested implementation of the plan is by taxing a percentage of each ISP subscription, and give the money to the papers. The report, which was solicited by the Dutch parliament and written by a committee of its members, specifically states that 'news and the gathering of news stories is not free, and the public must be made aware of that.' The report is not conclusive, but from here it's just one step toward a legislative proposal. Both industries are largely privately owned in The Netherlands, and the current government is center-left wing. Who needs an RIAA if you can build one into your government? And hey, why invest in the future if you can invest in the past?"
Taxing ISPs specifically, seems ass-backwards. If you're going to subsidize an outdated industry (which, hey, is done all over the place) why not fund it out of tax revenue generally, rather than putting a brake specifically on the internet? How about a new tax on cigarettes? :-)
What other newer technologies support older ones I have to wonder? I won't say that print media is "out" because I think it is still a very important thing to maintain. After all, once a newspaper commits to print, it can't effectively be changed. It was said and published, for better or for worse, whatever it was it will always be. With digital, there is a risk that few people take into account -- archives and editing. Anything stored digitally can be altered, often without a trace. History of events can be changed to suit whatever interests are pushing their agenda. The best you can do with print is burn it and hope that no one questions why it's missing.
But to tax one medium to support another? There is something wrong with that.
When we started looking for cost cutting measures, we discovered we'd been paying 250,000 a year for phones at a distribution center we'd closed 5 years prior. Nobody'd noticed, because that was pocket change. That's a whole buncha reporters they could have been paying, and that sort of waste was endemic just a few decades ago.
And forced? I don't think so. They ignored the internet, and tried to charge regular subscription prices for online content, and took it in the ass. Then they went too far the other way. They're still lunging around without a real direction, outsourcing ads cutting their own throats by putting up projects that take months to produce, online before the print product is even on the stands.
They try to sell these "online editions" which are basically pdf versions of the paper, and much less useful than the website itself. What a joke.
Classifieds? Classifieds are gone. The revenue is down to 10% of what it used to be, and it's never coming back. Free online classifieds are superior to 15 columns of unsearchable text so small you need a fricking magnifying glass.
No one gives a damn if the crappy newspaper comics page is going to go out of business. No one cares if the extremely scanty gig guide or the cooking/gardening crap that's all available online is gone. Editorial content, somewhat, but that's on the fringe of the regular news content.
Frankly, you sound like you're about 60, and more power to you, you're our core demographic. But trust me when I tell you, that we can't survive if we can't get some subscribers under 30, and they're rare as rare.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.