You write (To our valued readers, 16 April) that “the business model … has been severely undermined”. This is management speak for “we’re losing money” and has been going on for a lot longer than “recent months”. I reckon your large price increases, 11% for the daily and 7% on Saturdays, will bring in about £11m extra revenue a year, if you don’t lose any readers (you almost certainly will), but you’re honest enough not to pretend that this price hike is to support investment. On the contrary, we know that lots of people will be losing their jobs. I think you could accompany those redundancies by doing a lot more to “bring you the very best journalism”. I want much better, more detailed foreign coverage and fewer trivial stories (I’m not interested in sensational court cases and celebrity opinions). I’d like far less sport. The paper could be a lot better without costing much more. I write “the paper” because that’s what I pay for and read. Why am I being asked to increase my subsidy for your free online version?
Andrew Anderson
Edinburgh
• As a regular reader for over half a century, I would like to ask why prices are being raised. I believe if the Guardian sheds its easy throwaway sections and reduces its price substantially, it could compete with Google, Facebook and other social media. Why do you think that even an avid reader like me can find time to read up to 100 pages of daily paper and over 200 pages of Saturday paper? It is high time serious papers like the Guardian become newspapers again in order to survive.
M Riaz Hasan
Pinner, Middlesex
• Perhaps a price reduction might encourage the sale of more copies through impulse purchases rather than the commitment to subscription, but as that would be the sensible market-driven decision it is unlikely to have crossed anyone’s mind at the Guardian. Take note of the i newspaper. It’s 40p.
Charles Foster
Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire
• So the fresh, cleaner-looking Guide now omits any information about the concerts or opera on Radio 3 – let alone who is playing or where. A cultural omission, surely?
Nikki Knewstub
Liskeard, Cornwall
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
