“Imagine if you could only buy a newspaper in the middle of the day, and you could only read it at the office during work hours,” he says. “That’s kind of the world we used to live in until fairly recently. How successful do you think newspapers would be?”
This is -- to me -- an incomprehensible quotation from an otherwise mildly interesting short article about a website I like a lot called Longreads.com. And now I know there's a Longform.org too. So much good writing out there.
If anyone bothers to read the entire short article and then understands the above quotation maybe that person will explain it to me. If it's something really obvious I'll be embarrassed but at least I'll know what it means.
6 comments:
I think he's just saying that until recently, you could only access lengthy digital content from a desktop machine, and the only time many people had to do so was during the workday.
So a product like his that aggregates lengthy content could not expect to be successful until mobile reading devices came along, so people could access it on the subway, for example. If he had launched it five years ago, it would not have been successful.
Does that make more sense?
Hi Kitt. Thanks for the explanation. But here's what my brain says. It's just not the case that "until recently" the only way to read long journalism was to see it during working hours on a computer screen. For example, you could buy the damn magazine and read it while floating on a canoe in the middle of a lake! And even if you wanted to read something available only on a computer screen, how many people do you know who have computers at work but not at home? Back in the late 80s/early 90s that was often the case, and of course I'm aware that there are still people (my next door neighbor for example) who have never touched a computer. But the quote sort of assumes that the world of reading began when digital content became available.
Ignore me. The editor in me insists on reading things literally -- and this sentence (“That’s kind of the world we used to live in until fairly recently") is simply not true, not literally true. I'm grumpy and grouchy because I don't have my bees. Also technically not true because 7 days after the hive left the property I STILL have a couple of hundred poor starving lost bee souls out there clinging to the little hive stand.
Obviously, I'm not with the current world. I still live in a world that's maybe 1/4 digital but 3/4 pre-digital. Maybe that's why I love my volunteer library work. Ensconced in paper and ink and binding!
THANK YOU. I had the exact same reaction. I think Kitt's rewrite is much clearer than the original, but it's still just wrong.
I agree with Kitt's understanding of the quote. The fact that the guy who wrote it is just 35 is where the problem (if you want to call it that) arises.
For someone in his age group, buying a magazine or sitting at a stationary computer must seem positively archaic--not to be considered seriously. Much like it would be for us to take all of our news and stories from the writings on cave walls or stone tablets.
Even though it's possible for someone to read lengthy articles from a magazine, or while sitting in one place, WHY do it if a better, more mobile, technology option is available? Personally, I prefer a magazine to any technology. It just feels more satisfying.
I love these puzzles/quizzes (quizzles?) you pose, Pam. Same for the New Yorker cartoon.
Oh, I don't think he's saying long reads weren't available; he's saying that the service he offers would not have been viable.
But yes, you have to think too hard about it for it to be a good quote.
Also, I'm sorry about your bees; esp. the ones that got left behind.
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