A few minutes ago I drove through Solway and was amused to see a Coca-cola truck and a Pepsi truck unloading products at the same gas station. I like to think they had a battle to the pain among the candy bars and potato chips.
So, it appears that the Oak Ridger and News-Sentinel are now charging folks to access online articles more than 1 week old.
According to both websites, the rates are as follows:
Wow! Almost $2,000 a year, and you don’t even get unlimited access! One side note, however: the Oak Ridger site states that “unlimited free access is available to print subscribers.”
I’m not sure when this system began, or if it’s following a national trend. Is it a ploy to increase the number of print subscribers in an attempt to increase print ad sales? It seems to me that the cost of digitally archiving and storing articles could easily be covered by the many, many online advertisements I run across visiting both these sites.Â
Interestingly enough, locally-owned and operated Oak Ridger Observer has PDF versions of all its previous issues located on its website. It doesn’t appear that these are searchable through the website itself, but it says a lot that they’re there and they’re free.