Back in the late 90's it appeared that the daily newspaper was a dying
thing. People could go online and read the news on multiple sites.
This was true, and I found myself going in that direction. There were
web sites that had the same text and photos as the paper. Some even had
the cartoons. For awhile, I continued to get the newspaper as well as
reading it online. Somewhere around 2003, I decided that it did not
make sense to pay for the newspaper, which I was not reading very often
anymore. I cancelled it. For a few years I would read the news online,
and felt that was all I needed. However, in the last few years I've
been noticing more and more that the news media websites have become so
cluttered with useless garbage and ads that I was spending hours trying
to get the latest news, and often left their sites feeling aggravated.

These sites are no longer like a newspaper. They are a massive clutter
of trash, with bits and pieces of the news scattered in between. How
many damn videos are needed to address a news story anyhow? And why all
the flash content that takes quite awhile to load, occasionally causes
my browser to crash, and becomes very annoying more often than now, when
things are bouncing around on the page and popups and other useless
jink, not to mention that the pages are at least half advertising, and
clicking on something that appears to be news, is really ads. Then too,
how many goddamn facebook and twitter icons do they really need on each
page.

I've had it with the internet media sites. I just returned to getting
my daily newspaper, and am very pleased. I can sit back and relax while
reading the news, weather and sports, and even enjoy a few cartoons,
without being bombarded with trash and other annoyances. Sure the paper
costs a few bucks each week, but I have to take into consideration that
electricity to run the computer costs money too, not to mention having
to constantly upgrade the computer and install new browsers and software
just to keep up with all this useless garbage they flood their sites
with. After all, time is money too, and even if the upgrades dont cost
anything, it takes time to keep installing the software and learning to
use it. Yet, in the end, who needs it. A newspaper is pretty simple.
It's a text news story, and some photos to back up the text. Then
there's some advetising, and that's it. Whatever happened to the simple
websites that looked like a newspaper?

Then again, it dont stop there. The entire internet has become a
massive pile of garbage. Websites that used to offer content, now are
filled with trash. The newsgroups are dying fast, which means soon, we
will only have that repulsive facebook and twitter to say what we want
to say, and only a huge mass of garbage for websites.

Considering what I've spent for computers, software, electricity to run
them, and many many hours of my time, the cost of a newspaper is cheap
in comparison. And better yet, I can sit back and read the newspaper
without it poping up and telling me my browser is outdated and I need to
install another version of adobe flash, or finding bad page rendering,
where the text is on top of a photo, etc.....

Maybe the old ways were better.......