The 98th volume of Technician has come to an end, and with it the Student Media Board of Directors has decided to end paper printing twice per week, opting instead for print once per week and a reduction to 4,000 from 5,000 paper copies for the 99th volume.

This decision is, without a doubt, the best that could be made. It aligns with the original goals and purposes of Technician, it is an environmentally beneficial decision, it is especially cost-effective and even the sentimental costs of it are counterbalanced by the new sentimental benefits.

At Technican’s core, we serve as a news organization — not a newspaper. It has been, and will always foreseeably be, the job of Technician to inform and provide content for the student body. This year, especially, we’ve seen a transformation into an online-first publication.

There is good reason for this movement to online content. When asking Jonathan Carter, the editor-in-chief of Technician and a third-year studying political science, about the change, he summarized that “quite frankly, students aren’t reading print anymore.”

Carter even went so far as to say that with this change, the amount of content, “at minimum is going to stay the same, but it’s probably going to go up.” Put in simple terms, if this news organization is doing something to increase the content, then it’s doing the right thing.

The simple fact is that with the change of the times, more students are looking for their content online. If Technician is to live up to its word and provide content to the student body, it cannot do so while concentrating on an inefficient medium. Technician cannot sacrifice its core purpose to appease a few who would rather have printed papers; such an action would be unethical, in part because of its impracticality.

“It is a lot less paper that we are recycling,” said Patrick Neal, the director of Student Media advising, when asked about the environmental effect of the change. “That’s going to really reduce our footprint in that way.”

Although the paper used for printing is already environmentally friendly, the less paper that has to be recycled, the better. NC State is continually moving to a more sustainable and greener future, and it’s only right that Technician and Student Media do what is within their power to accomplish this goal.

Of course, one of the main driving factors for why this decision was made − and why it’s the correct one − is the sheer cost of the way Technician operates. Carter stated that for a while, “Technician has been in the red as far as our ad revenue has been concerned.”

Neal also provided data which showed that Technician is trying to fill a hole of $55,925 and that this change will save $24,265 in printing and distribution costs. Neal continued, saying that with roughly 50 percent of the papers being picked up on average, next year Technician will be cutting production from 5,000 to 4,000 papers.

Neal also brought up the fact that currently Technician is subsidized by student fees, emphasizing that “the fee subsidy for the current year has more than doubled over last year at about $56,500.” Essentially, this means that even those who don’t particularly prefer online or print have a stake in this discussion. Neal explained that the decrease will prevent student fees from having to be increased any further as well, which is a clear benefit to the whole student body.

More than just being beneficial to the student body though, it’s an ethical decision; choosing to keep print twice a week for sentimental reasons at the cost of raised student fees sacrifices quite a lot just because a few individuals like to hold paper in their hands.

And for people like that, this is of course sad in some ways, but it’s important to note that it’s happy in others. A lot of people love the feel and tangibility of a paper. I can’t say I feel the same way, but I understand that their nostalgic concerns need to be considered. It is perfectly understandable for somebody to enjoy print because it’s what they grew up with.

But I, and likely my whole generation, have grown up with online news. As such, I am personally very excited to see Technician take a larger step into my comfort zone. Even though this change emotionally pains some, it emotionally benefits others. All great things must come to an end, but that doesn’t mean that they cannot be followed by even greater things.