It's odd. People didn't buy newspapers for the classifieds. Classifieds were there nonetheless and they appear to have kept the lights on for the newspaper.

It suggests the newspaper funding model was already broken — they just didn't know it until the internet came along.

Of course by my own fucked up logic then any enterprise making money based on advertisements is on a precarious footing since no one engages in their business for the ads.

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hollerith 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Many looking for a job, used car or apartment for rent bought a newspaper for the classifieds. I almost never bought a newspaper for any other reason.

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AdmiralAsshat 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Sure, but then that meant you probably bought the odd single issue, or maybe for an extended period until you found a job. You didn't buy a subscription for the sole purpose of looking at the classifieds.

	▲	jacobr1 6 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You bought the bundle. You got games (crosswords and such), Local/National/Intl News, local Arts, schedule info for things like movies/theater, recipes, comics, sports score and analysis, classifieds, even for the ads to see if there were shopping deals to be had. You bought a subscription in part for the value of one or more sections, but also because culturally everyone else did too, and once you have it you probably found something interesting. Few people ever read everything in the paper front to back regularly. That is why both then and now headlines were important.
	▲	behringer 6 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Collectors did though, also anybody doing estate sales and auctions.
	▲	hollerith 6 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		True.

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ghaff 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I expect many people reading this are too young to remember. But, other than a Sunday paper from time to time, it wasn't that uncommon for me to buy a newspaper for the local classifieds or help wanted ads from time to time. And, other than sometimes watching the nightly news or having a weekly subscription to Time, the (typically) Sunday paper was more or less my only source for news in a given week.

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dehrmann 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I guess the key lesson is don't subsides your main product with an also-ran side project that's actually your only viable business.

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sitkack 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Which is exactly the existential cliff that the ad driven economy is about to drive over. Those big search engine companies that also happen to sell ads are, like, gonna have to pivot hard.

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6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]