An Information Tax

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Elsewhere on Time.com today, Douglas McIntyre has assembled a list of the 10 major newspapers most like to fold or go digital. Many are publications struggling in a two-paper (or more) town, like the Philadelphia Daily News and the Detroit News. The Detroit Free Press is already gearing up to stop home delivery Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays as of March 30 in an attempt to stay afloat. The Free Press recently announced plans to deliver copies to senior centers on the off-days and to hold computer classes to help people navigate the web edition.

Of course, Detroiters can always go online to get their news. But in a city with a median household income around $35,000, personal computer ownership isn’t exactly high. So for those who still want to read a local newspaper, there are just a few choices: buy the News (until it goes under), stand in line at the public library to use one of the outdated computers, or pay full-price for a print edition at a local gas station or drug store.

Okay, so paying full-price doesn’t seem like that big a deal given how ridiculously underpriced newspapers have been for decades. (Read Paul Starr’s excellent recent essay in The New Republic for the historical explanation of those low prices, and more.) Still, I can’t help but think this new arrangement amounts to a tax on information. You and I can continue to read about the wacky hijinks of the Detroit City Council for free on our home or office computers. But in order to learn about what’s going on in her home town, the average Detroiter must now either get herself a computer or go out of her way and pay full-price for a print edition of the paper. That stratification of knowledge is only likely to increase as more papers turn to digital-only in order to survive.