I found a digital copy of the print edition of Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle front page. The design dragged me in, and I immediately started reading it. I can't remember the last time a website did that. Just for fun, let's compare the print design to the web version of the Chronicle. 

Paper newspaper:

Website for the same newspaper:

 

The paper version is beautiful. It uses great typography and layout to focus your attention, drag your eyes down the columns, and pull you into the stories. The website is a hideous abomination barely worthy of dignified evaluation. What happened here, in the transition from the print newspaper to the digital one? It is a perplexing regression, but it is absolutely not unique to the Chronicle. The print industry, given vastly better display and distribution technologies, has responded by making its products worse.