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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.
Cue "OMFG They're so irrelevant!" whiners.
Frankly, it's about time. They spend millions a year to produce a product (written news stories) and they have two delivery formats for said product: One, a pay product printed on dead trees, which accounts for the vast majority of their revenue. And two, a free digital product that doesn't make shit, with the added bonus that it makes their paying product worthless.
Seems like a no-brainer. Now, the question becomes, will they charge a fair price, or will they pull a record company move, and try to charge the same for a physical and a digital product?
One thing is for sure. If it works out for them, you're going to see tons of print outlets following suit.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I hope and wonder if people who subscribe to print/paper version will get free online access. If they don't it will be pretty greedy. I believe Wall Street Journal provides free online with a paper subscription.
Actually, there are only a handful sources of similar content of similar quality, and the two that immediately spring (WSJ and the Economist) are behind pay walls.
God knows the NYT has its flaws (WMD and Whitewater, as high-profile examples), but in terms of original national (US) reporting it's way above the AP or the BBC. I think the WSJ is (was?) better, but their big stories (Enron, back-dating options, Vioxx, for example) are obviously business related. McClatchy seems to have an edge documenting issues with the 'official unnamed' sources, but doesn't do as much elsewhere. Most other quality sites simply do different things altogether.
Personally, I pay for the WSJ and browse the NYT free on line. This will probably make me switch to the NYT for a year and see how I like it as a daily news source. So, yeah, in my one case their strategy will work.
Slate did this, the NYT should talk to their management about lessons learedn.
They used to be a popular well read site that decided that a paywall was the way to, regardless of what their readers told them. They later added an interactive ad that you had to get through as a means of allowing people to visit without paying. By the time the word they changed back to an ad based site for free the damage was done. By then it was too late and a fair part of their user base had been alienated and simply moved on.
How many people would be surprised that Slate is no longer a pay site, and you can simply read it without any hoops? I would imagine a fair number of people as they probably haven't visited the site in years. For the meanwhile, the damage has been done and Slate is a shadow of their former self.
I've said before, and I'll say it again, the news is a commodity, if you want visitors you have to differentiate yourself against Reuters and the Associated Press. You can either do that with original reporting and or a better experience. Adding a paywall only works with a substantial investment in one or both, witness the Wall Street Journal which has original repoorting of high quality for an example and has been behind a paywall for years.
It's not a matter of being the most reliable; it's a reliable, content-generating, influential news source.
A very small percentage of our summaries link to the NYTimes. Regardless, we're always disappointed when a site we occasionally link turns into a pay site. Some stories we can pick up elsewhere, some we can't.
The bigger problem is that it's one less source -- not just a link target, but a source -- that provides tech news. And other sites are assuredly watching and taking cues from the NYT, the WSJ, etc., to see how they can either turn a profit or turn a bigger profit. A drop in the bucket, perhaps, but enough drops will fill the bucket. As more and more sites put up paywalls, news junkies will have less free news to read.
On the other hand, nobody reads the linked articles anyway, so maybe it's not so bad!
It's either this or continue the slow boil. However, I would be more willing to spend my cash for an aggregation service like Google News or something similar. I use the Internet to get my news not just because it is convenient, but also because the number of sources I can easily review gives me broader coverage. I have no idea if the Times play will be successful, but I do think they need to examine their business - they aren't just a newspaper company anymore, nor is CNN television news anymore - they're both in the business of news and opinion in general, and are thus competing on similar playing fields. Perhaps the answer lies in "partnerships" - I would pay for a news partnership that included World, National, and Local news that consisted of, say, MSNBC, The New York Times, and the Denver Post. I have no idea how feasible it is - this is just my $.02 on what I would pay for.
Mod parent up! :)
Seriously, people here love to talk about how the "new economy" makes it possible to remove "artificial scarcity" and make it so everything is free.
What these people ignore is that, even if it costs no money to copy something, it still costs money to create something. There is still, in this "new economy", the very real economics that the majority of content people use (Computer programs, movies, music, television programs, written articles, etc.) is content that would not exist if someone wasn't being paid to make it.
I enjoy reading all of the articles on the New York Times' front page every morning, and understand I soon may need to pay for the privilege of reading the quality journalism and writing the the NYT offers.
Now, I'm sure someone will point to open source software and say "Mr. MaraDNS, you don't know about open source software and how this proves that we can have all the compelling content we want for free in the 'new economy'". I will point out to people who think like this that I am, in fact, a developer of open-source software.
People who think open-source software (OSS) makes it possible for all content to be free don't understand how OSS changes the relationship between the developer and the user. A lot of people think an OSS program is like a commercial program, but free, and that they can ask for features or get support for free, and it gets pretty tiring to have people email me asking for free support, even though I make it clear that I don't provide free email support for my program.
The thinking behind OSS is that I donate some of my coding time and effort to the greater community. In return, people are free to contribute bug fixes or improvements to the program, or supply support on the mailing list. For example, someone wanted better IPv6 support, supplied patches, and now MaraDNS has good IPv6 support. Another person wanted better Windows service support, and supplied patches to make MaraDNS' new recursive core be a full Windows service. Other people answer user's questions on the mailing list or translate documentation. Webconquest very generously provides me a free Linux shell account and hosting for the web site.
Likewise, I found an OSS Doom random generator I liked and provided bug fixes and improvements to it; when I lost interest in it, another person became the maintainer and improvements continue to be made even though I no longer work on that code. And, there is a Free Windows Civilization clone for Windows which I have provided a bug fix and extended the documentation with.
OSS doesn't mean we have the right to demand all content be free or are justified in pirating media and software. OSS means that we can, together, make free content which complements the for-pay content out there.
MaraDNS is an open-source DNS server.
I'm okay with paying for the New York Times. I agree the quality of their articles makes it worth it. Lengthy, well-researched content costs money to produce, and people like myself and the rest of the Internet thrives on the professionally-produced news. Without it, Slashdot and my blog would have much less to link to.
Where I am against this is the implementation. New Scientist magazine and the WSJ have both gone the metered/subscription route. So if I want to access their content, that's two sets of usernames and passwords to keep track of, and payment for content I'm only reading incidentally because I got referred to it from another site. Add the NYT's to this, and it's three sites I have to manage and pay for.
The proper solution was for the newspapers to establish a single-access paid-for system where we can access all their content and have the papers get paid a percentage based on the popularity of their content. They are apparently shunning this logical strategy for an anarchy of individual strategies that will confuse, frustrate, and drive away consumers.
I love newspapers, I want them to succeed, and I think this old push-media strategy is going to drive away more readers than it will convince readers to pay for content.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
I think this is the great information age challenge; how do content producers (and I am not necessarily talking about the publishers here but potentially the 'artist' themselves - more on that in a following paragraph) receive compensation and how do I as a consumer support them. This is not a new topic since single sign on and micro-payments have been a topic discussed for quite a few years.
Personally I would like to support the creators of content, however, bulk payment (i.e. monthly subscriptions) just doesn't work in the newly connected world where potentially anyone can be a content producer (how many monthly subscriptions would I have to have, and how economical would that be). If I could pay per article so that I could support the newspaper or the blogger, then the content providers have incentive to continue and I get the greatest number of possible sources for news and entertainment (currently, advertising is the only way most of these content producers get paid today and that is definitely not ideal on multiple levels).
There is another industry that is undergoing a similar transformative process and that is music. How long until the artists can skip the labels entirely (for some, that day is already here, for others it is very close). If we consider a song to be somewhat equivalent to an article, then there is an existing model out there that, with modifications, can support the information industry.
I have a feeling that Apple and their iTunes ecosystem might just be headed down that path, since they provide a type of single sign-on (my iTunes account) and they provide multiple forms of media (and if we believe the rumors, books and other information media is coming soon). They would be in a position to create a micro-payment environment for all content producers to get paid directly with out the reliance on advertising.
Now, I don't actually believe iTunes will become the new internet, just pointing out that it can be used as something of a template for the greater internet.
As this article at The Atlantic points out, the NY Times makes more money from subscriptions than from advertising. If they can get enough money from subscribers then they don't need to worry about page rank, hits, click-throughs, etc.
Best Slashdot Co
I have been paying for Wall Street Journal Online for possibly as long as 10 years. Robert Murdoch, who purchased it a few years back, has been changing the pay model a lot to maximize revenues. I'm likely to unsubscribe over the next month or so for the first time since I first began using their online service instead of paper. Here are the changes that have made it worse for paying customers:
1> Added advertising for paid subscribers. 2> Confused what is free and what is paid for. This is a never ending moving target. It is very confusing when you try to share something with non-subscribers. 3> Huge price increases at renewal time that I have to renegotiate over the phone. 4> They throw their video content on the home page, which you go to about 20 times a day. On laptops I use all day in an office environment, I have volume muted so do not benefit from this. Yet, it freezes Firefox while it downloads the content for about 20-30 seconds every time I click on the home page. I've asked them to remove it, to no avail. 5> Announced that blackberry access will no longer be included with regular online access. Separate fee required. This, to me, is the straw that is breaking the camels back, and why I will unsubscribe as soon as this goes into effect.
It is sad to see the NYT follow the WSJ's lead in this. I'm willing to pay for content, but they really do need to find a model that works and stick with it instead of changing it every 3 months. They are pushing long-time paying customers like me away.
Erik
Open Standards Portal
Thanks for responding, Mr. Wayner. It's interesting to hear from someone on the inside of this issue. I find that I disagree with a lot of the points you listed in the linked piece. But I find a lot of value in the insight you offer.
Having said that - I had no idea who the heck you were. I had to consult Google to get some indication. I hit Wikipedia to get a bit more insight. With that in mind, I thought giving your piece a look was worthwhile. If any of that was locked behind paywalls, I would have zipped along on my merry way, dismissing you out of hand as yet another curiosity that I don't have the motivation to pursue over the boundaries set before me.
How supporting you as an author while not putting up too great a boundary works... well... now, that is the question, isn't it? It'll be interesting to watch (in so far as train wrecks invoke a certain facination). But I don't believe the NY Times has the answer.
I should note that my interest is a little more than average freeloading consumer of information. My father is a noted author in his small field. But he has always had to struggle with the economics of that activity. It has always been difficult to make money doing what he does - at least on his niche subject matter. He has a current project that ran in to a dead end with the traditional publishing route and we are currently looking at a more open tactic (open publishing of the bulk of the project linked with paid references, teaching aids, and speaking engagements). I hope my fascination with my father's project isn't the aforementioned train-wreck variety; only time will tell. But I do know that traditional strategies / pay walls have only served my father so far.
That's the thing, companies need to work within the market realities. There are niche's everywhere but my opinion is that the NYT does not fall into many of them in comparison to existing offerings. If they are really running themselves into the red as they say then as you say they should cut back or restructure. Or do something else. But making people pay while there exists free alternatives is just plain dumb. Perhaps some day there will be no alternatives for institutional news, but you know what would scare the crap out of them: so what, I'll take decentralized news that is marked up through multiple filters of people for free and bookmark the citizen hub sources I find useful in particular. Newspapers are just another industry the Internet is washing over, they think they're owed an existence?
Shh.
Look, I'm sympathetic to your view. I *want* quality news sources to survive, that takes money, and, thus, I want to encourage them by throwing some money their way. I still subscribe to regular paper news at home, for example. We're just on the threshold of having cheap dedicated e-book / wall display devices that could have the equivalent of a newspaper pushed to them electronically every day. It would be nice to have something that emulates the traditional newspaper-reading routine, but in electronic form. That's something I might subscribe to, but they're still a few years off.
The thing is, I have no fricking clue how to help newspapers and the creators of their content survive in the on-line world right now. None. And I'm sure you'll find the same sentiment to be widespread here and among other technology forums. What's the solution to getting them the revenue they need to survive? There are ideas, but they usually fall short.
I could say they need to ramp up their on-line advertising content, but they're already doing that and apparently it isn't enough. I could say that they need to understand that information moves around quickly and freely in the on-line world, such that ordinary people living in a country and directly party to the news of the day can become informal "reporters" (witness recent events in Iran and Haiti, for example). Everybody can, in some sense, become an international reporter, thus, maybe we need fewer of the "professional" ones, and the days when they were always primary sources will inevitably wane as a result (maybe reporters need to become more like "aggregators" themselves, by developing trustworthy local source networks, rather than going on expensive trips). We still need historical perspective, we still need criticism, we still need reporters to dig for stories, and we especially need them to help the public hold our politicians in democratic countries accountable, so we still need real reporters too, but the ecosystem has been turned upside-down. Either they are going to adapt to it or they are going to become extinct or nearly so. The world has changed.
The way forward is not to beg indexers for a cut of their indexing to news stories (the Murdoch approach). That makes no more sense than publishers charging librarians for indexing the books on the shelves. It also makes no sense to insist on payment for every scrap of information. Information traditionally flows freely in the news industry as often as it does through paid channels. "As reported by so-and-so" is routine, and it isn't "stealing", as long as the credit line is there (and most people do the right thing and provide an actual link to the originating article). As I said, I don't have a solution, but I sure as heck know that some of the approaches are ridiculously wrong. Setting up a paywall is, to me, a risky and potentially fatal "solution". This has been demonstrated before. It's hubris to think that readers like your stuff *so* much that they will one day cough up money for something they until recently got for free. For example, would avid readers of slashdot pay money to keep reading it? I sure wouldn't. I suspect the readership here would drop to 10% of it's regular traffic overnight (might be worth an experiment on April 1st -- it would be even funnier if all the major tech sites "went paywall" for the day :-)).
A paywall might be worth a try in desperation, but once you start down that road it will be hard to fix if you discover it cuts away advertising dollars and readers faster than the paid subscriptions make up for. I'm not optimistic it would add up.
In such a comment I'm not dismissing the news media as irrelevant, I'm saying "DANGER!" Likewise, I think most technology commentators are not saying "Give up", they're saying to newspapers "Get a clue: what you're suggesting probably won't work."