

NYT reducing number of free articles available before paywall - dmd149
http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp6128.html?campaignId=39UWK

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maxmcd
So they're lowing their relevance, and hn readers find this unappealing, fine,
but can we really view this as anything but a hopeful indication that they
drive more revenue by bringing the wall forward by ten articles.

The nytimes paywall has never been popular among the tech crowd, for obvious
reasons, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work.

In my mind there are two possible things going on here:

1\. The paywall is working to a degree, they have tested a reduced number of
free articles and it leads to a higher conversion, and they are making this
move to increase revenue.

2\. The paywall is failing, an executive is concerned about meeting their
revenue targets, and is going forward with an untested free article decrease
as a ditch effort.

Let's hope it's the first, or at least a vaguely responsible combination of
the two.

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runako
I hate the skeezy way they quote their subscription fees: "First four weeks
$99 cents" against a regular price of $15 or more per 4 weeks. Why 4 weeks and
not per month? Are they really trying to grab the extra partial billing cycle?
Do they think their subscribers won't notice?

In contrast, The Economist has one price (in the US) for all their platforms,
including print:

<http://www.economist.com/products/subscribe/noreg>

I dropped the NYT because they are charging nearly 4x what The Economist
charges for a similar level of reporting. Switching to the Washington Post &
LA Times wasn't as hard for me as the NYT seems to think.

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danking00
I'm sure there are people for which 15$/month is a bit much, but I imagine for
most HNers it's just a drop in the bucket.

Could someone explain their revulsion to paying for the NYTimes? They have
expenses that need to be paid somehow. They produce a product that, although
flawed[1], seems to do a good job of educating me about the world. I'm a
satisfied online subscriber.

[1] OT: Among other things, they seem to have an obsession with pointing out
the flaws of the PRC; especially the IHT articles.

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corin_
It really is just a case of people's emotions largely being based around what
they are used to. If a new industry came up that meant in 15 years we could
all get great-quality cars for free, suddenly the idea of a normal car for
£10k would seem hilariously insulting.

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smackfu
It would be interesting to hear the real answer to "Why is The Times changing
its free access from 20 free articles a month to 10?" I guess they think
hitting the wall at 10 instead of 20 will drive more subscriptions? I find
that doubtful... as mentioned in another comment, the price is rather
expensive and a huge step up from free. When I hit the pay wall, I just go "oh
well" and read something else.

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crazygringo
Or you can just open nytimes.com in private/incognito mode and read to your
heart's content.

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reader5000
Eh, NYT also reducing their online relevance then I guess.

$240/year for a digital subscription is absurd.

~~~
jd
Not to mention that they still serve obnoxious ads when you have a
subscription.

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mcritz
Exactly! I once wrote NYT feedback asking, “how much would I need to pay for a
no-ad version?”

Their response was insulting. Essentially quoting the digital subscription
rates without even addressing my question.

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AgentConundrum
I assume it was just a form letter, and I have difficulty getting angry at /
being insulted by form letters. It's an efficiency thing that probably
adequately covers more inquiries than you would think. (Government is a
different story; I get annoyed by government form letters because they're
supposed to represent me, and if they can't be bothered with even pretending
to listen, then it pisses me off.)

That's not to say I don't get frustrated at them, however. A few weeks ago, I
was looking to buy Petzold's Code from Amazon.ca, and noticed that one of
their pages, linked from the checkout page, listed the free shipping option
for orders over $39. They had changed it to $25 probably more than a year ago
at this point, presumably partially because that's the threshold for
Amazon.com and partially because that's the free shipping price the otherwise
more expensive Chapters.ca uses. I sent them a message telling them the listed
threshold was wrong, with a screenshot, and explaining that I did know the
real price by quoting it. They responded with a form letter telling me what
the threshold was without any indication that anyone had noticed that I'd
pointed out a problem with their site.

I sent a second message explaining that I'd got a form letter and this time
they responded that the issue had been forwarded to the relevant department.

I just checked, and the incorrect value is still shown on the website. C'est
la vie.

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throwaway64
simply block cookie from their domain and set your referer to a google query,
problem solved

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asto
The average HNer will know to do this but the majority of the internet won't.
So they'll likely have the effect they want (reducing the number of unpaid
pageviews) and a bunch of side-effects they don't want (drastically reducing
their relevance as a source of information on the web)

[Edit: Grammar]

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portman
I was surprised at a family gathering recently how many of my in-laws reach
the paywall and then clear their cookies. Even non-techies can work around the
paywall.

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minimax
There is an embarassing amount of whinging in this thread about paying $0.50
per day for what is probably the best newspaper in the country. I've been
paying for the Times for several years now and it isn't even a blip on my
budget.

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cobralibre
I've always felt that gnashing of teeth over the NYT paywall was moot anyway,
since any right-thinking person will have a print subscription to the Times
for the crosswords.

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e40
This is so wrong. I hate crosswords. I read the NYT a lot. Back when I could,
I paid them $8/mo. They no longer offer that option. I'm also allergic to
newsprint, and I generally don't like handling a newpaper, so I won't be
getting home delivery.

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RobertKohr
I am surprised they haven't also added a pay per article feature. I am very
non-committal about subscriptions, but might fork over a buck to read one
article.

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corin_
New readers can already fork over a buck (well, 99c) for a four-week trial
subscription - of course, plenty of people dislike that because they don't
trust themselves to cancel in time.

The problem for subsequent use is that I suspect a.) very few people would be
willing to pay $1/article (maybe $1/day might be more likely?) and b.)
Bringing it down that cheap may well mean it will have fairly stupid credit
card processing fees.

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mcritz
I'm not surprised. Even thugh I added scripts to defeat their paywall my
viewing habits have changed from around five articles a day to five per month.

