Sorry about the click-bait headline, but this actually did surprise me so I thought it might surprise you.
I had been a 7-days-a-week subscriber to the Boston Globe for 35 years, give or take. And, Internet or no Internet, I’ve always maintained a soft spot in my heart for actual print newspapers, in part out of habit but also because I spent the first half of my career working for one.
Recently, however, that soft spot in my heart had come to be dwarfed by a hole in my wallet, so the time arrived a few weeks ago to ditch my print subscription in favor of what I correctly assumed would be a less expensive online-only one. (I’m ignoring new-subscriber and introductory rates here.)
Daily print delivery had been costing me $14.34 per week and that included full access to BostonGlobe.com content, which sits behind a paywall.
An online-only subscription costs $6.93 a week, or roughly half as much as having the print edition delivered to my home. And I was all set to pounce – at an annual savings of $385 – when a third option caught my eye.
It turns out that a Sunday-only print subscription costs $4.99 per week … and also comes with full access to BostonGlobe.com. In other words, they’ll charge me $1.94 less every week for granting them permission to drop a pile of newsprint and advertising circulars on my driveway every Sunday morning.
I’m assuming this has something to do with maintaining the profitability of those Sunday advertising circulars, but I don’t much care why – or even if – this makes sense to the Boston Globe since it means an additional $100 in annual savings for me over the online-only price.
And I really like the Boston Sunday Globe in all of its dead-tree glory.
Now all I need to do is redeem $4.99 a week worth of coupons and my new subscription will pay for itself.
