[Ygxejxox]

http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/02/tim...llion-readers/

[slowlexrese]

The current pricing structure seems absurd, and is probably doomed to failure as is.

However... they are moving down the right path. With the death of newspaper print, they HAVE to come up with alternative sources of revenue. Internet Ad sales alone can not support the type of news network the NYT wants to have.

The decline in physical newspaper sales has to be made up somewhere, and charging for content can do that.
But, as usual, they are asking far too much and the use of multiple levels based on device access is simply crazy.
They should be charging a single fee for unlimited access.

Now, you may laugh at the 15 dollar per month (four weeks) cost... but that isn't unrealistic. As it is now, hundreds of thousands of people currently pay over 7 dollars a week to get the daily NYT outside of NY. NYT readers are a loyal bunch. Even as circulation in New York continues to fall, circulation outside of New York does pretty well. There is a large audience in the US and globally that wants what the NYT has to offer. If they can get the pricing right without trashing too much of the online revenue...

[violalmina]

and do they still have the readership?

In any case I see this as a declining business model... the "faithful" will joing and pay, while the majority will ignore and use other "free" in other words, ad, and otherwise supported news sources, until those behind the paywall die out in a decade or two...

it may be another nail in the "traditional journalism" coffin, but the new infrastructure can and will support different business models which will be both valuable and "free" for the readers.

[retTreftowhexm]

I think it is a good option really. They aren't going entirely behind a paywall, for casual folks like me who probably don't exceed 20 articles a month it'll be just fine. Then they can try to stay in business on the backs of those folks Ming talks about who wouldn't have a problem paying.

[OgrGlgHu]

The easy solution is to have multiple accounts. When you reach the limit, switch.

[StarsWorld]

This would be more palatable if the NYT, WSJ, ToL, and a few others offered a passport where $20 per month got you access to all of them.

Would probably result in a greater signup than for the sum of them seperately too.

[pavlik]

I'm unlikely to sign up to any of them due to the hassle, and the ability to get quality elsewhere.

I would sign up for a single service that gave me access to all of them for a reasonable price.

They could turn the hordes of people like me, who have never paid a cent for any of their products into paying subscribers, if they make it simple enough. That would be their furture and how they could make this work well, and not just be rent collection on the way to the grave yard.

[Nglvayhp]

BTW, I hearby claim ownership of my idea. TM, c, etc.

[natahololll]

US paywall starts March 28. I got the notice in my morning email.

Of note:
Tablets/mobiles will have free access only to the "top news" section sans subscription.
Articles linked via social media (FB/Tw) will get full access to that specific article (only).
Print subscribers get free total access.

This will severely limit my click-throughs to NYT. But a little creative social networking looks like it will circumvent their evil plan to stay in business.

[JOR4qxYH]

We give you back Celine Dion, Dob Cherry, and the CBC.

[Lebybynctisee]

We already did, or at least the idea for the caricature. It's a pretty good caricature, too.

[Kiariitf]

What?

I've Googled pay articles by headline and writer, and not had to pay.

edit: ah, I misread.

[Freedjome]

Only a few days after the New York Times launched a paywall on its website for Canadian visitors, a Canadian programmer has come up with a free workaround to keep the site open to all, and it only took four lines of code.

David Hayes, a Kitchener, Ont., developer, cracked the paywall during his lunch break.

“It’s just a four-line script, plus a few more to allow me to update it,” he

said in an e-mail to QMI Agency on Tuesday. “I wrote it over lunch. I’m a little surprised it took off, over 5,000 people are using it so far and it’s

less than a day old.”

The code loads into a user’s browser as a button that looks like any other bookmark. When confronted with the paywall, users can click the button to reveal the full text of the article behind it.


“I think the NYT is in a tough position in that their status as a paper of

record needs people to be able to see the content, but their income stream is dependent on restricting access to that content,” Hayes said. “It’s very hard to show-but-hide.”

To block articles that users aren’t supposed to read, the Times simply

places a grey screen over the text and bounces a “please pay us” window in front of the user.

Hayes’s script prevents that screen and payment window from loading into the browser, while letting everything else load as normal.

As a developer at the Nieman Journalism Lab points out: “The other major news paywalls — WSJ, FT, The Economist — don’t actually send the entire forbidden article to your browser, then try cover it up with a couple lines of easily reversible code. They just hit you with a message saying, in effect, “Sorry, pay up here” whenever you stray past the free zone.”

Hayes’s program is called NYTClean and is currently only available on his website at euri.ca, which is currently slowing down significantly due to

heavy interest from would-be Times readers.

NYTClean isn’t the only way to get around the paywall, though. The newspaper’s site also allows free visits from anyone clicking on links distributed through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

The Times launched the Canadian paywall on March 17. It is expected to launch in the U.S. by the end of the month.

"Our digital subscriptions have been designed to allow a generous amount of content to be free through various methods, including the Web site, apps and links from third-party sites like social media, blogs and search," New York Times Company spokeswoman Kristin Mason wrote in an e-mail to QMI Agency.

"As with any paid product, we expect that there will be some percentage of people who find ways around our digital subscriptions. We will be monitoring the situation."

Hayes says he loves the Times — “It was literally the first page I bookmarked when I got on the Internet," he said — but he couldn't resist the paywall's challenge.

"It’s just an iron rule of nerd-dom, if you put an interesting looking wall in front of us, we’ll try to get around it.”

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/MediaNew.../17714806.html

[NickGrass]

What an unbelievably weak technical solution to implementing a paywall.

Amazing that someone with their web resources could come up with something so weak.

[VIDEOHITE]

It's not surprising the guy who did it lives in Kitchener. Hi-tech area (U of Waterloo and RIM among others).

[grudabor]

Bigot!

[galaktiusman]

Things are changing since you left.

Ford is looking for the gravy train in Toronto and McGuinty is updating his resume (bad news for Harper if history holds true).

[vforvandetta]

Frankly, they don't care what you think
And they know many people will settle for their free stuff, or hack around to get their pay stuff for free.

The reality is that much of their target audience for this will be businesses and people who will think that the 15 bucks a month (I agree that multiple price levels for different types of access is simply pure greed and will probably be dropped after they test it) is nothing and will pay it simply because it is easy to do. Their audience will probably not care whether it's 5, 10 or 15 dollars, they will simply give a credit card number and be done with it.

To many people and businesses, the NYT is fricking special enough... and will be more than willing to pay for it.
There are a limited number of papers that can get away with it, and they are one of them.

[sandyphoebetvmaa]

BBC isn't free. The Brits pay for it.

[caseferter]

The BBC is top-notch. I'm glad you fund my entertainment.