The Last Newspaper?

I got an annual bill for the Anchorage Daily News a while back.  But I had also just been informed that their new policy was no more door step delivery.  Newspapers on the driveway.  So it now sits very close to the sidewalk where someone walking by could easily pick it up.  (There was a period when someone was actually getting it off our doorstep every morning.)

But I've also grown comfortable being able to open the door on a snowy day and reach out and get the paper.  I don't have to put on shoes to walk through the snow.  The paper has gotten skinnier.  Then we lost Saturday papers.  And now no more doorstep deliveries.

I understand daily newspapers are dying across the country. I want to support my local paper.   But each cutback of this or that content or service is one step too far for one segment or another of the customer base. And those people stop subscribing.  So the cost savings becomes a revenue loss.

Is this my step too far?  They called  Tuesday to let me know my subscription was ending.  So I was surprised to see the paper in the driveway today.  I did tell her I hadn't decided if I was going to renew because of the change in the delivery.

It takes, at most, 30 seconds to get out of the car, run up the driveway, and get the paper on our doorstep.  For six days of delivery, that's 180 seconds or three minutes.  For a month, it's around 12 minutes.  What am I willing to pay for that?  I think $20 an hour is fair for someone delivering papers.

I think the ADN should give readers an option.  For $21 a month, they can have the paper delivered to the door step.  The carrier would get all the money, not the newspaper.

Now let me complicate it a bit.  We're gone maybe a total of three months between November  and early March.  While we're gone we just get the electronic version.

I'll send them this post.  If it's too complicated for them administratively, maybe they can give me the phone number of the paper carrier and I can work it out with her or him.