In a dispute over the pricing of ebooks between Amazon and a publisher, Jeff Bezos and co. have gone after authors in an attempt to get what they want. A New York Times article about the fight said that an organization of writers purchased an ad in The Times for $104,000 to protest the maneuvers.
I wondered what sort of advertisement $104,000 would get you nowadays in one of the best newspapers in a dying business. Now we have an answer: pages 8 and 9 of the section everyone sees first.
I suspect this website featuring the same letter from Authors United cost just a bittttttt less, but who does it reach? A misguided question; the Web reaches everyone (with an Internet connection). But no one actually needs to reach everyone. You just need to reach the people that matter.
I suppose $104,000 buys you access to a lot of people who care about books and those who write them.