Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

NY Times Confident of 'First Click Free' Paywalls

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the it-never-ends dept.

eldavojohn writes "One thing you might notice on Slashdot is that when someone submits a story linking to nytimes.com, it doesn't always work. While it's not truly a paywall, it appears to stop the user and require registration... sometimes. If you noticed this and it's seems to be non-deterministic in when and where it asks you to login, you're simply noticing the latest strategy of 'first click free' being employed. We've heard that normal paywalls are a miserable failure (the Wall Street Journal's, one of the more successful, only lets you see the first paragraph online). Will the drug pusher approach work out for The New York Times? The CEO seems to be certain that this blogger (and Slashdot) friendly paywall is the correct option and will keep The New York Times as a 'part of the conversation' online when news is rapidly circulating." I will tell you that if I am asked for a password, I almost always reject the story immediately, or go find a better URL. Heck, yesterday I rejected a NY Times story for this exact reason. So we'll see how it pans out.

5 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. If You Want an Example by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Informative

    I submitted a story a few days ago. Click the link once, then close the page. Then click the link again. You should get a paywall. I was a bit confused by the comment that iamhassi posted on it until I tried to visit the page again. It's happened before but now their strategy is clear and verified. Oddly enough when Soulskill retooled it and pushed it out, the new link is immune to this.

    The Slash code seems to adjust my links sometimes and I've told CmdrTaco about this but it's really evident on nytimes.com articles.

    --
    My work here is dung.
  2. Re:Why the paywall won't work by sheriff_p · · Score: 3, Informative

    Depends. I already pay for The Economist as a news source. Sure, there are plenty of other places to get "breaking news" online. If I want to read high quality journalism ... less so. When the NYT goes proper paywall, I'll pay. When the Daily Mail does, I'll rejoice ;-)

    -P

    --
    Score:-1, Funny
  3. Re:Why the paywall won't work by bws111 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The AP is NOT the source, the newspapers are. AP is owned by the newpapers. AP gets it's stories from the member newpapers (they also have some of their own reporters). When there are no newspapers, there is no AP.

  4. Re:Pay For The Internet? by larry+bagina · · Score: 3, Informative

    He's not a billionaire because of advertising, he's a "billionaire" (on paper) because of his facebook stock (which isn't traded on the open market so the valuation is arbitrary and based, more so than usual, on hype). So starting a high growth company pays.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  5. Re:Why the paywall won't work by yelvington · · Score: 4, Informative

    What does the NYT (or any large paper) offer me that I can't get straight from the source (AP) for free? They haven't been doing much real journalism in years, so I'm at a loss.

    If you think that, it's because you don't actually read the New York Times.

    I'm looking at the NYT homepage right now. There are three wire stories. Everything else is original work by one or more New York Times reporters.