Just The Facts, Maam...

My heavily discounted subscription to the San Bernardino Sun having expired (not that they haven't stopped delivering the damn thing) Wifey purchased a subscription to the Daily Facts for the princely sum of $10 for one full year.

Back in the day, ten bucks would barely buy a month's worth of the local rag, being as how there was some sense of pride by the publisher that people would pony up good money to read the news.

$10 a year works out to a little more than three cents a copy. That's a hell of a lot less than it costs to print and deliver it, but since I have no love for the Facts these days, anything that costs them money is OK by me. Let them whore themselves out, regardless of the fact (pardon the pun) the paper serves a community who can well afford to pay full price.

Apparently, the industry as a whole has now agreed that anyone paying full price for a subscription is dumber than somebody buying an American car at full MSRP in today's economy.
As of 4/1/09 (no joke, honest) the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the independent body that for generations has guarded against misleading readership figures, now only requires that readers spend one cent per copy for the newspaper to be considered "paid".

I'd hate to think that at a ten-spot a year, I'm paying too much.