newspapers are social media

http://www.wsj.com/articles/newspapers-are-social-media-1477436218

"Newspapers Are Social Media"

The article explains how social media deliberately takes advantage of their crowd or 'loyal subscribers' by putting them in what is known as "The Content Trap". The writer of the article presents and explains steps in how they carry out this scheme, making consumers as a result value content so much that they will be willing to pay for it. It works something like this: Step 1: Produce great journalism. Step 2: Become a trusted news source (e.g., by winning acclaim such as Pulitzers). Step 3: Use that reputation to get subscribers. Step 4: Offer the readers up to advertisers. Step 5: Market the weekend edition to nonsubscribers. And, finally, Step 6: Use the virtuous circle (readers beget advertisers beget more advertisers) to charge high ad prices. 

• Guardian's losses hit £69m but it gains more than 50,000 paying members
• $500,000 to $1 million made are: Brentwood Home Page, Front Porch Forum, Noozhawk, San Angelo LIVE, Technical.ly, The Philadelphia Public School Notebook, VTDigger

Seeing that the majority of users have adblock on, news institutions simply cannot sustain themselves at the moment without any revenue, and as a result the news online news industry is going downhill, as it did with print media.