To the editor:

As threatened, on April 1, my daily Journal-World, which has for the last five years always appeared on my porch, suddenly appeared at the far end of my driveway. I was curious whether this would happen, as it was unclear whether “guaranteed porch delivery” meant “we’ll work hard to make sure you get porch delivery” or the veiled threat “you are guaranteed to not get your newspaper on your porch, unless you cough up 50 percent more a month.” As I expected, it was the latter.

Walking down my block Monday morning, seeing the sidewalk newly strewn with newspapers, I could only think “Thank you, Journal World, for making it that much harder for your elderly and disabled customers to retrieve their papers and for exploiting a new opportunity to gouge your loyal subscribers.”

I don’t mind if you’re a company that provides a new service in exchange for an additional charge. That’s fair. But the Journal-World has taken a new tack: “We won’t increase our customer service level and ask you to pay for it. Instead, we’ll DECREASE our level of service and make you pay more in order to regain it!” Congratulations, I can only imagine the high-fives in the marketing department the day that brilliant idea was hatched.

I look forward to the next phase of ratcheting down your customer service level: Will you supply the newspaper, but only in secret code form, easily deciphered with a decoder available for an additional monthly fee?