New York Times Ready to Charge Online Readers

I'm sorry, that's not possible to charge the ISPs. According to Rick, they'd have had to have rebuilt the internet to do that.

 

Why isn't it possible to charge ISP's? That's the ESPN360 model. Web site access can be filtered at the ISP level. With text, it is easier to use a proxy since you don't need a fast connection to display text. Using a proxy for ESPN360 makes it pretty much unusable.

Whether the ESPN360 model will work or not is a different issue. By the way, I use someone else's password for ESPN360, since I'm lucky my local cable company even has Internet service.

 

Internet guy sat there with a blank look on his face. All the other writers - those of us who are getting our hours slashed because revenue is dropping - said "Damn straight"

 

Advertising has always paid the freight, not subscriptions. Subscriptions pay for the ink, paper and gas to get the product printed and delivered. Advertising has and will always pay for everything else.

 

ESPN coming to an agreement with cable companies that they already deal with isn't quite the same as internet companies negotiating directly with ISPs.

 

ESPN isn't making an agreement with cable companies per se. They make a deal with ISP's for ESPN360. While most of those ISP also provide pay TV, some ESPN360 affiliates don't.

 

I stand corrected, then.

I'm still incredibly skeptical that it can be applied on any sort of a wider scale, but apparently at least one company can get it done.

 

Stuck in the 1990s, I see.

 

Patently untrue. You have no clue if any of the people who look at your website paid for a newspaper. Also, most people who read the print edition didn't pay for it either.

 

But you set your rate card based on audited circulation. When that drops, ad rates drop and thus ad income drops. That's the dilemma.

 

Right now I get the Times on my Kindle 13.99 / month. Love the format. Love not having the clutter of ads that you get with the Times on the Web.

Times archives would compel to pay for Web based versin unless there are any easy work arounds.

 

I'm skeptical as well. ESPN has an established brand that has the clout to make deals with many ISPs around the country. The New York Times couldn't get the nationwide reach it would need under an ISP-paid model because of little demand percentage-wise of ISP users who visit NYTimes.com regularly.

Newsday has an ISP model in place, but only exists because of Cablevision.