Publishers reach for new metaphors to describe what Steve Jobs just did to them
It’s not easy to explain to customers who like the sound of Apple’s (AAPL) new subscription plan — from one-click purchases to protection from junk mail — why it’s a deal breaker for publishers.
So they’ve turned to the most powerful weapon in their literary arsenal — the metaphor. A sample from Monday’s news stories:
- “Traditional print publishers have spent the past few years cast in the role of the nice old-fashioned girl in high school who was ignored while more recent arrivals got all the attention.” — David Carr, the New York Times
- “They’re the beautiful girlfriend you had in high school who was a bitch for no apparent reason,” grumbled one publishing executive. — Lucia Moses, MediaWeek
- Richard Jones, the co-founder of Last.fm, put it more bluntly: “Apple just ____ over online music subs for the iPhone.” — Josh Halliday, the Guardian
For more substantive analysis of the publisher’s predicament, see Frédéric Filloux’s Monday Note.
Also on Fortune.com:
- Steve Jobs to pubs: Our way or highway
- Does Apple have a monopoly?
- Could Apple lose an antitrust case?
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
