RolandDeschain":ozmivvbo said:
The Radish":ozmivvbo said:
Same old comments.
"we want all the information but we don't want to pay for it". is alive and well here in this forum.
Sadly you don't realize that someone has to do that work and they expect to be paid.
:141847_bnono:
If you're lumping me in with that, I pay for the access to Pro Football Focus, and once Football Outsiders drops their new book, I'll be buying a year's subscription to that, too. I repeat my prior statement, that it's sad when a business can't figure out how to change with the times.
Yep, gonna agree with you here that it's sad when a business can't change with the times. No need to blame it on anything else. If the business can't find a way to build that revenue to support their "bridge to online audience" (as the PFW editor called it), perhaps that business needs to re-think its strategy.
When I read the article, it was clear to me that PFW saw their business model as being print-first, with the online version being a supplemental thing. That is clearly a foolish model and has been since 1998. No need to sugar-coat. Anyone with half a brain has seen this coming for a long time.
The PI tried to adapt, and they failed. I know some folks who worked for the PI during that period, and they told me the reason the PI failed is because there was a lot of bull-headed hubris at the top of a chain of command that was outdated, old, and refused to listen to any ideas other than their own. You look at the death of any large company and it can ALWAYS be traced to some bull-headed hubris in upper management. Old guys sitting around talking about the good old days and refusing to see the world for what it is NOW.
Good example is the American car industry. They got so full of hubris and had such inflexible management during the 70's that it basically killed their entire market. While the japanese clearly saw that the fuel crisis would drive consumers to smaller more fuel-efficient (and cheaper) cars, the "Big Three" were still obsessed with building gas-guzzling land yachts. While the japanese saw the advantages of composites and alternate alloys, the Americans stubbornly stuck to heavier, higher-cost, higher-maintenance steel. I could go on, but we all know the story. Simple stupid hubris and poor upper management killed the USA's auto industry.
The simple fact of life is that the only people who will survive are those who adapt, as it has always been. All those old men sitting around yacking endlessly about the "good old days" of journalistic integrity, IBM selectrics, and the way a freshly printed newspaper feels and smells - those guys just don't get it. They might see those things as good, but the rest of the world doesn't. We've evolved. Either evolve with us, or go extinct like the dinosaurs.