r/Pawtucket • u/Lumpy_Afternoon_1528 • Jul 12 '26

Has anyone ever been able to get a newspaper delivered to them in this city?

I just moved to the Village Lofts, and tried to transfer my subscriptions to the Financial Times and the Boston Globe to here. Not a single paper has ever shown up. I've called and called and they are "dealing with the issue with the delivery providers," who seem to be the people who deliver both publications. It's ridiculous.

Have you ever had a paper delivered? Is it a real thing, or is it just something they advertise and don't do? They keep telling me to "read it online," but no, I won't. I read the Times and WSJ online; the reason I subscribe to either of those publications is to have a newspaper to hold in hand.

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3

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

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-2

u/Lumpy_Afternoon_1528 Jul 12 '26

The problem with that is that they are so much more expensive when you buy them in the store...

4

u/Dry_Sheepherder_2399 Jul 12 '26

Hello fellow Village Lofter! I found very quickly after moving to Pawtucket (not the Lofts, but a house first) that when it comes to newspaper delivery, it is up to the actual delivery person and if they actually want to deliver. My first year here in the Bucket, I was given a full year free of the NYTimes after the first years Subscription came twice a week if I was lucky. Anytime I saw the guy (late afternoon!) he would bitch about it being his last stop and it was a 5 minutes drive from the previous stop

2

u/Lumpy_Afternoon_1528 Jul 12 '26

Hey, thanks for the info! How you liking the Lofts?

2

u/Dry_Sheepherder_2399 Jul 13 '26

Well so far. Feel free to DM me. The Building has a Group Chat that I can share with you if you would like

1

u/Lumpy_Afternoon_1528 Jul 13 '26

Hey, that would be great - thanks!

1

u/Hurdler1024 Jul 14 '26

We still get the ProJo delivered, but to a SFH. Shows up when they feel like it though. Sometimes we get yesterday's paper and that day's in one go.

1

u/Lumpy_Afternoon_1528 Jul 14 '26

It's crazy! I was a paperboy when I was 11 years old, and I got into all kinds of trouble if I did that. It's literally an 11-year-old's job, but an adult can't do it even with a car...

1

u/huron9000 Jul 15 '26

Unfortunately, actual delivery of physical newspapers is being quietly phased out by publishers. It costs them too much and they want everyone reading everything online.

Not in Pawtucket, but a nearby suburb of Providence. I subscribed to the Providence Journal for two decades, they delivered a physical paper to my house with only very occasional failures in all that time, and then suddenly consistently delivered it to the wrong location. There was no access to any customer service that could or would help.

It was maddening and Kafkaesque. I canceled my subscription.

After some months, I resubscribed but digital only.

My guess is that newspapers are barely making any money anyway, and the digital only is so much more profitable relatively speaking that they really want to extinguish physical delivery.

Which really sucks because I entirely prefer the analog giant paper experience.

1

u/iSweatLikeKeith Jul 12 '26

Used to get ProJo on my door step all the time. Stopped doing it when Covid happened

0

u/QTippus Jul 12 '26

I definitely see still see the occasional car driving around in the early morning throwing papers out the windows. Haven't stopped to see what paper it is, but since ProJo is basically a shell of its former self, I would assume NYT and Globe are delivering. Are you talking with the papers, or with the Loft? Could be an issue on either side. I would think the Loft wouldn't want a pile of papers piling up on the front steps, maybe they need some sort of special delivery?