A total disjuncture between cost and value; such was the problem facing Gorbachev. Consider this; Pajamas Media, that heroic attempt to refute the principle that putting 15 idiots around a table gives you the average of their intelligence, not the sum, is reorganising as a subscription video site. You will be able to pay $15 a month to watch them “debate”.
Well, no-one ever went bust underestimating the public’s desire to jeer at the confused. But that doesn’t make it a good thing. And you have to wonder at the situation; in Africa there are mobile phone networks that make a good business on a monthly ARPU of one-third that. And they have a product that helps you reduce the percentage of fish that go rotten before getting to market – with absolutely no Jonah Goldberg in it!
But they expect to charge three times that. Maybe they’ll start building an ekranoplan if this doesn’t work out?