"Online news is an inferior good!" So, less gratifications?

It is said that inferior goods are not of poorer quality than other goods, but rather they are simply goods that people consume less when they have more income. In other words, inferiority is related to affordability rather than the quality of the good. Inferior goods are affordable and adequately fulfill their purpose, but as more costly substitutes that offer more pleasure become available owing to income increase, the use of the inferior goods diminishes.

From the perspective of “adequately fulfill purpose” or “offer more pleasure,” it seems to be associated with the theory of “uses and gratifications” whether a good is an inferior or normal one. In other words, normal goods should offer consumers more pleasure than inferior goods do. That’s because normal goods displace inferior goods when people have enough income to purchase normal goods. In this context, if the argument that while online news is an inferior good, the print newspaper is a normal good is correct, the print news media should more adequately gratify audience’ needs and desire. Does this make sense?

Some studies argue that “from the mostly comparable levels of perceived news gratifications obtained between offline and online news consumption, it is clear that these two news outlets are supplementary in their ability to serve the audience”(Uses and gratifications of online and offline news: New wine in an old bottle).

According to other findings, "news media substitution does not depend on functional equivalence of media in providing gratifications and gratification opportunities or types of content. Instead, media use depends on habit and media accessibility" (Are news media substitutes? Gratifications, contents, and uses).