I had to check below Richard Siklos’s byline in the NYTimes online edition to make sure that his Media Frenzy column wasn’t written on April Fool’s Day. He managed to write an entire column about the reaction of media conglomerates to un-profitable economic motivations of online media without mentioning the NYTimes, or Arthur.
Death by Smiley Face: When Rivals Distain Profit

These are new-media ventures that leave the competition scratching their heads because they don’t really aim to compete in the first place; their creators are merely taking advantage of the economics of the online medium to do something that they feel good about. They would certainly like to cover their costs and maybe make a buck or two, but really, they’re not in it for the money. By purely commercial measures, they are illogical. If your name were, say, Rupert or Sumner, they would represent the kind of terror that might keep you up at night: death by smiley face.

With $1.5 billion on its books for Property Plant and Equipment, the Times would find it unprofitable to write off its paper-delivery infrastructure. The scary question for the Times is not how Craigslist can survive, but at what point will the Times  have to scrap the infrastructure used to deliver 519,000 metric tons (11.4 million pounds) of paper per year to subscribers.

Online content distribution almost eliminates the barriers to entry posed by the paper distribution system used by newspapers. With the investment barriers lowered, the distribution of news and commentary becomes possible for individuals and small groups interested in personal wages and equity, rather than the sort of excess profits that attract the attention of Wall Street.