Slashdot Mirror
Paywalled NYT Now Has 300,000 Online Subscribers
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like the derided-on-slashdot paywall for the NY Times hasn't brought down the paper so far. The Times now reports 300,000 digital subscribers (to e-reader versions and the web combined) and digital advertising revenue for the part of the company that includes the paper has increased 6% this quarter."
It isn't a paywall, it is a payrope. You can just wander right over it (without any underhand tactics). I have been a reader before and after (5-10 articles per day) and have not noticed any difference. I don't know what the article cut-off is, but unless you plan to read the thing cover-to-cover every day you aren't going to notice. I suspect a lot of the 300k subscriptions come from ipads and kindles, because I can't see how it would be easy to get value for money from a PC subscription.
/. crowd say will fail). The NYT payrope is a sensible hybrid model, that finds enough people (willing or stupid depending on your prerogative) to pay, while the rest go free. Now if we get figures on The Times of London's subscriber figures (blanket solid paywall) then I suspect they would be a lot more in-keeping with the /. predictions.
Paywalls block all content, and are flawed (and are what the
Keep in mind that every print subscriber gets a free top-of-the-line digital subscription. Its actually cheaper to get the paper edition and recycle it then it is to just get the online, in fact, which is annoyingly stupid.
Stupid, but economically sensible given the environment. Print advertising rates are set based on circulation, so simply sending a paper to someone earns money for the Times, whether they read it or not. If you assume that (advertising income per paper subscriber) - (cost of printing a paper) > (web subscription cost) - (paper subscription cost), the Times makes more money when you sign up for the cheaper paper edition than when you sign up for online only.
Real news coverage is about depth much more than timeliness. I'd much rather have in-depth analysis of say, a proposed law, in a week or two than fluff in 6 hours.
TODO: Something witty here...
Nobody on slashdot would care about stupid paywall sites if you would do the most basic of editing tasks and stop linking to them.
I got it for free on my ipad
No, you didn't. It was paid for by the outrageous markup you turned your head and coughed up for having PHB decide what you can and cannot run on hardware for which you were way overcharged.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Then you want to read The Economist. Look around for a few minutes and be impressed that such a high-level newspaper exists. Despite its name, it does not deal with mostly economics. It's more for international politics and major world events.