NYT Announces its Subscription Plan

I read the WSJ for free by pasting the headline into Google.

 

I think I'll have to subscribe.

I read way more than 20 articles a month.

I'm not sure this will help other papers though if it works. The Times is a national paper. It's the best paper. It cranks out a ton of articles you can't get elsewhere.

I'll subscribe to one paper, but I'm not going to pay for more than one. I'd pick the Times way before I would pick the Chicago Tribune, where I live. I'd say the same thing about the Houston Chronicle or either of the Tampa Bay papers when I lived there.

Too little independent reporting on national & world events. The local stuff I can get anywhere or I know from listening to the local news radio.

 

What I truly don't get is when I read around the comments today - and this is frequently levied at the paper, but particularly today - all I read about is what a horseshit rag The Times is, etc., etc.

I honestly don't understand how you can be an American consumer of current events and think The New York Times is a "bad" newspaper. Every single day is an absolute marvel. The reporting is top-notch. The writing is top-notch. The depth and breadth are both second to none.

On what planet people who think the New York Times "sucks" are living on, I have no idea.

It's a national treasure. I'd be lost without it.

 

Amen

 

It's boingboing. You can write that Doctorow article yourself like Madlibs.

(Attempt to get people to pay for content) will never work and is misguided. People will just (use technology to get around it) and (attempts to thwart those people) is illegal and an immoral invasion of privacy. I know a little about the media because I've written articles, and it sure is funny how stupid they all are compared to me and my tech-savvy readers that fellate me.

 

Try and tape a Doctorow lecture and his attitude changes.

 

Basically, this deal will snare readers from outside the New York area who don't have home subscriptions. Former residents of the Big Apple, expats, the odd foreigner. So, fewer viewers but more who are invested in the product and (in theory) more valuable to advertisers.

And at 50 cents a day, that's maybe half of what I spent on my daily newspaper fix before the web took over. Yeah, I'm signing up.

 

... and don't use Facebook, Twitter, read blogs or search Google.

 

That'll work if you want to read random articles, but so will the 20 free articles a week.

If you want to actually read the New York Times every day, it will get pretty old trying to find a free way in to every article you want to read.

And, not to sound like a NYT commercial, but I like to read a pretty wide spectrum of their articles. Am I going to find twitter or blog links to every dining article, architectural review, or travel piece?

I'm as spoiled as anyone in expecting the news to be free. I'll read an occasional WSJ article by finding a free link through Google, but I can't see doing that for every Times article I want to read.

 

I think the NYT will siphon off the news junkies and the upper crust who won't be bothered by the cost, skimming the most desirable readers from other outlets' advertisers.

But it won't be so many that it will make a big financial difference to the Times, and it won't help the other outlets charge even smaller fees for their content. Lose-lose.

 

If you give people the option to pay, many will, even if there are obvious ways around it. It's a psychological thing.

 

Love that The Times is using Canada as the "guinea pig" to iron things out.