NYT Paywall Cost $40 Million: How?

An anonymous reader submits this musing from Philip Greenspun's blog: "Aside from wondering who will pay more than the cost of a Wall Street Journal subscription in order to subscribe to the New York Times, my biggest question right now is how the NY Times spent a reported $40-50 million writing the code (Bloomberg; other sources are consistent). Google was financed with $25 million. The New York Times already had a credit card processing system for selling home delivery. It already had a database management system for keeping track of Web site registrants. What did they spend the $40-50 million on?" Maybe the folks behind CityTime were free on weekends.

Comments

Re:A simpler way.

[GameboyRMH]

If this was government work you'd know without a shadow of a doubt that they're laundering political kickbacks through IT projects, as usual...and some underpaid fresh-out-of-school coder(s) would be left to do the real work for peanuts while the person who was paid so much to do the work would take an extended vacation to a sunny tropical place with a favorable exchange rate and extradition policy (not that it really matters because the issue would be quickly forgotten).

Ask me how I know (actually don't, I shouldn't say too much).