Ben: > The Independent are trying to flog their palm edition for 6.50 a month!
Yow! Idiots! I think there isn't enough time to read enough of it to be worth that... > I can buy the discounted paper edition from my student union shop for > less than that. And you recycle it afterwards, right? ;-) > Ananova was good up until a few days ago [...] Ah, hadn't spotted that yet. > BBC news is really good, and I don't personally consider providing an > excellent web-based news service an abuse of the license fee :-) I think using the licence fee would be justifiable on the same grounds as their television and radio services if the legislation had been changed accordingly in *advance* of their acitivities. Using BBCi as a way to implement cut-backs in the grant-funded World Service broadcasts definitely isn't. The Internet is not (yet?) a broadcast system. If it were, then I should hope that they would be compelled to get value for money rather than just using the money that they take from taxpayers to compete with the private businesses of a significant number of their taxpayers. Of course, the users have a significant role to play here. We should all publish things and try to help sustain the independent services online, rather than letting the corporations turn the net into yet another passive medium. -- MJR
