This discussion reminds me of many years back when the discussion was how many people will lose jobs due to arrival of computers.

I think we are comparing apples and oranges

Nation digital is no different from the newspaper. Their online version is dumbed down. It can't be competing against itself. It's just opening up new avenues to receive their news.

The Financial Times didn't go down because of the internet. They went down because they couldn't compete with the new bloggers who had more information. Having a printed paper that depended on tech savvy readers didn't make economic sense especially when their main readers were mainly online even at work and reading the latest blogs from the best financial minds in real time.

Media organisations should be more worried of failing to give us information. It is cheaper for those without the capital to start a blog and get ahead of the main papers. See the example of ghafla and kenyan post.

The time is coming when consumers in Kenya will be demanding the news they want not the news the editors in media houses want to give.

To prove that print paper will still exist, few worldwide media companies have moved to 100% online. Yet their populations are more tech savvy. In fact, as the FT was making loses, online magazines such as the Onion were making more money in their print business. They had interesting news to give whether online or offline.

After a consumer gets used to a new gadget eg the new safcom app. they will still insist on good news stories.

Therefore, the biggest challenge to the Nation and the Standard is not technology, but their archaic editorial practices, bad journalism, paid "news", and shingdinging with the who's who while leaving the holloi polloi in the thirst for Robert Alais of this world.

I still read Hillary Ngweno's magazine, even if it smells like a donkey peed on it.

News print isn't dying soon. Ask the newspaper vendors in New York.

Read the last statement. Newspaper vendor isn't going anywhere soon.

Not everyone has the venerated ipad. And I know you think you're digital but we are still a third world country.

You will get that digital version for a week then get bored and go back to the vendor. So until my kids have never seen print, the industry will still be going strong and the vendor will be just fine.

The argument for digital papers can be compared to the argument for all mobile and the death of the desktop. It's a dream and its not happening soon.

When I see the exit of the print vendor in the streets of New York, then I will join the digital all the time bandwagon.

What is the value of information,to who and why?

Why the passion murchr. Kweli you are the one who asked that the paper go ndigital?

Your vendor is a good business man, not everyone wants to grow up to become a vendor.

What you are forgetting is one thing. The toughest online business is subscriptions. It is the most profitable but the toughest. Trust me, even the guys who have it now free from safcom will dump them the moment they learn about subscription.

As for the dispora guys, be honest, didn't your paper have the same version online? How many subscriptions did it get. I know coz I tried it, saw subscription and dumped it.

The print business has always been sustained by advertising. That has not changed. Even internet business is sustained by advertising. But for me to subscribe, you have to have something I really want.

Print will survive because entrepreneurs will have information that their niche wants. do you read parents magazine online or on print? Can you read a fashion magazine online or on print? Which is the better experience.

I say again, the death of print was reported prematurely and highly exaggerated. It is alive and well. What is dying are state controlled media and power brokers who used to sell information.