Let no one mourn the newspaper

[Cross-posted from Collaborativationalism]

It’s really an old story now. Newspaper circulation is dropping and it’s dropping fast. There are various and good reasons why this is the case. But they call come down to one thing.

Newspapers - and their core audiences - got hung up on the means and forgot about the end.

There’s something enjoyable about paging through a well-written newspaper over a late breakfast, this much I grant. But if what you want is to know what is going on in the world, to gauge the opinion of others, to hear salacious gossip about people you’ve never met - well then those are your ends, and the newspaper need be the medium no more than a train need be the means to travel between New York and Washington.

We let our irrational fixation on the means steer us away from what really matters. This is the core problem people face with small innovations and advancements.