Jason Calacanis gave us a peek into what he calls his latest neurosis on This Week in Startups that I caught from a clip featured this afternoon on PaidContent. Jason is upset about the prospect of the New York Times taking themselves into an Apple-only distribution model.
From Jason’s rant:
If you are a publisher of a newspaper magazine or book and you sell your product through the app store, you’re a fool. You’re an idiot, and you’re going to give your entire circulation to Mr. Steve Jobs. Let me explain to you that what you’re about to do is destroy your entire business. as a publication, your business is predicated on having a relationship with the reader. That reader gives you their contact information. And you have a circulation department that sits there and obsesses about it. You give it to apple, you get nothing but a check that says “Eff You, you’re a fool. Here’s your check for $82 minus 30%.”
I don’t often point to rants from Jason Calacanis as hitting the nail on the head (he and I disagree vehemently on the nature of the Network Neutrality debate, for instance), but I don’t know how I can restate what he’s said with any more eloquence.
