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NYTimes Confirms It Will Start Charging For Online News In 2011
jmtpi writes "The article is frustratingly vague, but the New York Times is confirming earlier speculation that it will start charging online readers who visit the site regularly. Occasional users will still get free access to a certain number of articles per month. Most of the key details are not yet determined, but the system is scheduled to be deployed at the beginning of next year."
The Times is planning on rolling its own pay system, and it will doubtless use the rest of 2010 to look at how sites like the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times fare before deciding on specifics. How often do you readers typically hit articles at nytimes.com in a given month? We try to avoid linking to stories behind paywalls when possible, and if the Times chooses a low monthly limit, you'll probably see a lot fewer links to their site — which would be a shame.
Oh crap, duh, in article it says it's free. Next time read before writing!!
Their global page shows less of that focus:
http://global.nytimes.com/
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Slate did this, the NYT should talk to their management about lessons learedn.
You make a number of valid points. However, I believe that you're talking about Salon.com. Slate is and (with possibly some limited exceptions I'm not aware of) an advertising-supported site that still gets tons of links and traffic.
On a more substantive note, two things: (1) stories will still be free to users who read only a few per month, which helps to avoid the Salon.com problem. (2) It doesn't take effect until 2011 which means they still have time to abandon the whole thing if advertising revenues tick upwards.
I still think it's a rotten idea.
Well, the cost of a daily print subscription to the New York Times is 14.80...For a week. Mind you, that's to my house, and I live a long fucking way from NYC (checked it against my old NYC zip code, and it's only 11.70 there).
So, given that the bitch costs 800 bucks a year for us plebes who don't live in New York, and only around 600 for the pricks who do, I'm guessing that 50 bucks a year would be a bit of a steal. =P
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Publishers don't create....
The older I get, the more I appreciate the hard work of the editors who fix most of my errors and the sales team that collect the money from the advertisers and subscribers. They create an environment that helps me, the nominal creator and the only one who gets a byline, produce something that's better.
Now it may be that the market will decide that they don't want to pay extra for these layers. That's a decision that all of us will make consciously or unconsciously when we decide what content we want to consume. But there's no doubt that they do something.