Much like with books, the 10-15 best sellers a publisher has fund the thousands of duds. Newspapers are as cheap as they are because the filler content gets subsidized by the good stuff. And it is rare that a publisher will know what is good before it is released.
Newspapers are as cheap as they are because they are still filled with ads. Not that i mind it, ads on paper are 1000x more tolerable than the blinking, spying popovers one get online.
It's the micro-payment conundrum again. I happen to have a friend who is deep into payment tech, and he told me that publishers would love to sell single digital issues for a small, small fee, but customers are not buying.
This seems to cover most stuff where the transaction value in question is low, e.g. newspapers, single songs, and so on. The UX seems to be inadequate. I'm not privy how my buddy's company is trying to address this, but I guess it is hard to beat a news stand where I drop a few coins and get a newspaper and chewing gum.
