Update on the Vancouver Sun’s Online Offerings
About three weeks ago, I bemoaned the fact that, like many papers around the world, the Vancouver Sun was starting to charge for its online edition. At that time, I called them up to see how much it costs, and they couldn’t tell me.
I called back today to find out. It tooks the customer service rep about two minutes to locate the price–she was going through old emails to find out how much it cost. Clearly, they’re not getting tons of calls on this. Introductory offers aside, it’s going to cost $13.99/month for access to the online version, and an additional $3.99 for something called the electronic edition. As far as I can tell, the electronic edition is a digitally-rendered version of each page of the paper. You can click on any story or ad, and read the full text.
Why anyone would want this goofy ‘electronic edition’ add-on is mystifying to me. If I’ve got access to the searchable, online edition, what do I care what the paper looks like? Any shaved baboon can search the site to locate a specific story. It’s got compelling archival uses, but not for the average consumer.
By comparison, getting the dead-tree version of the paper costs $16.83 a month.
Rob 
