It very well could be that he opposes The Atlantic’s practices and is using this op-ed to speak out against it.
Why would they allow that?
Bureaucracy is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural
Journalistic integrity.
It’s not too uncommon for journals to include op-eds critical of the journal itself. Usually the author is responding to a previously published article (hence the “op”), but they can also criticize the journal’s practices or call for broader change in the industry.
I’m pretty sure the article mentions that is behind a paywall. The article writer is against it.
I feel like the people most affected by paywalls, i.e. people who read their news, are already pretty well informed.
There’s plenty of access to quality journalism, more than ever, the problem is that no amount of quality or availability can compete with misinformation tailored to addict, comfort, and flatter it’s audience. You can’t inform people against their will.
The thing that bothers me most with the current pay wall situation is that I’m not against paying for journalism in general, in fact I favor it: Reward good work with good money.
The problem is the inflexible payment methods. I want to be able to pay some cents for a single article quickly and conveniently. But most online newspapers offer only a month+ long subscription. That’s asking way too much, I want really want just this single article. And all the other stuff that you’re also giving me access to I simply wouldn’t use.
I like to read up on specific topics from a variety of sources but the current economic models heavily punish my archetype of costumer. I simply can’t afford to open up hundreds of subscriptions over the course of a year.
Now often I simply fall into the X free articles per month category because I stray across so many different media outlets but that feels bad too because I actually want to pay for individual articles and help preserve journalism but there’s no means. Best I can do currently is rotate some subscriptions each month and free ride on the rest.
In the paper era you could at least grab an individual issue (not an individual article, series or section thougn) at a newsstand and weren’t locked in.
The web desperately needs infrastructure to effortlessly and quickly transfer small amounts of currency - change my mind. European Central Bank is working on a digital Euro which could lead to this but that’s many years down the road and also going to depend a lot on their implementation.
spoiler
🤔 🤔 🤔 🤔 🤔 🤔
For awhile it seemed like we didn’t need public broadcasting (CBC in Canada, BBC in UK, PBS? in US) but with paywall world it’s going to be more and more essential.
Enter url at archive dot ph - problem solved.
Did you know that every minute, 60 seconds pass in Africa?
No way! It’s the same here in California, what a coincidence!
