Printing The NYT Costs Twice As Much As Sending Every Subscriber A Free Kindle

Dividing total printing costs by number of subscribers is very misleading.

But given that they are making their money primarily as an advertising delivery device, how effective are ads on the Kindle?<p>One large advantage of the newspaper, as an ad delivery medium, is its size. It's hard to go from a huge visually scannable paper to a paged set of articles, where the ads invade the optimal page size.<p>I am completely sick of advertising, but it's hard to pay for a large news gathering operation without it.

Printing news should have gone out of style a long time ago. We should have had, for some time now, a lightweight electronic notepad-sized device that just downloads thew news every morning that we grab on our way out the door. The money spent on printing is unnecessary and obscene. While I concede, for those who grew up on printed news, there's a certain comfort in the experience...there's just so much of a benefit to a digital version of it..aka the internet!

So send every subscriber a free Kindle.<p>(Seriously... or at least a Kindle like device that hooks into NYTimes content. It's a business move that News organizations should have made a long time ago.)

What would you (ie: anyone who thinks NY Times should do this) suggest for colleges that give away free copies of newspapers to students?

1. Many people buy the NYT from newsstands, as noted elsewhere.<p>2. What about other costs, such as tech support?