
The New York Times to Begin Charging for Web Use on March 28 - joshwa
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/business/media/18times.html?hp&pagewanted=all
======
donohoe
I work for the Times as a developer so I'm going to stay out of this
conversation other than trying to correct or inform. I'm keeping my own
opinions to myself (as best as I humanly can).

So with that said, here are 3 links I received that shed more light on this:

"A Letter to Our Readers About Digital Subscriptions"

<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/opinion/l18times.html>

"Digital Subscriptions and Premium Products"

[http://www.nytimes.com/content/help/account/purchases/subscr...](http://www.nytimes.com/content/help/account/purchases/subscriptions-
and-purchases.html)

More Info

[http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp0145.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp0145.html)

I hope they prove useful and informative.

~~~
Gaussian
Long time coming. Great product and great service. They're fighting for the
survival of the paradigm.

~~~
bioh42_2
_Long time coming. Great product and great service. They're fighting for the
survival of the paradigm._

What is that paradigm? I think some news outlets, mostly business, have proven
people are willing to pay for valuable news, the WSJ comes to mind.

The NY Times has a mix of hard news and soft opinions, their main problem is
that almost the same news is available from many free sources around the
Internet.

So I am genuinely perplexed as to what the paradigm is?

~~~
Gaussian
The paradigm is one news outlet having reporters all over the country and the
world covering things that may or may not make ripples in financial markets,
but may be just as or more important. It's one outlet having the breadth to
well cover a breaking event with disparate news aspects (the Japan earthquake
being a good example) that touch all manners of people and businesses across
the globe. Every decent-sized metro daily used to have bureaus in Beirut,
Israel, Egypt, etc. There are plenty of reasons, some of them good, that this
is no longer the case. The New York Times is one of the last vestiges of that
age and I don't think that nostalgia is the only reason we should root for its
success.

The only thing that guarantees that success, as Rupert Murdoch has pointed
out, is sustainable profitability. I think the Times' move to charge people
for their coverage will ultimately be successful, just as the efforts of the
FT and WSJ have been and, to a degree, as NPR's has been.

------
xbryanx
Workarounds aside, I won't pay. It's totally a fair price, and so is the
$5-20/month the 100 other services I use are asking me to pay. But in the
aggregate I can't afford it. The web has allowed us to become readers of many
perspectives, and this movement (regardless of whether it's right or wrong)
will push us back to identity subscribers.

~~~
scottkduncan
> "The web has allowed us to become readers of many perspectives, and this
> movement (regardless of whether it's right or wrong) will push us back to
> identity subscribers."

Most people have not used the web to become readers of many perspectives;
rather, they've used it to find media outlets that conform to their
preconceived biases. The web has allowed niche voices, who previously couldn't
find a large enough audience to be economically viable when media distribution
was geographically limited, to thrive. While paywalls might exacerbate this a
bit most people are already de facto "identity subscribers."

------
scott_s
I'll probably pay. The NY Times is my main news source, and I think it's worth
$15 a month. I want newspapers to survive. If that means they need to have
online subscribers, then so be it. Good things cost money. I'm worried that
the alternative will be news sources that optimize for pageviews alone.

Where I live, getting the NY Times paper delivered to me every day would cost
me $5.85 a week (<https://www.nytimesathome.com/checkout.php?step=1>). So this
is actually cheaper than a physical subscription.

~~~
pyre
Most media outlets optimize for page views. Though in print and on TV it's
known by a different term than 'page views.'

~~~
ghurlman
NYTimes.com has had the ability to read an article all in one page (and set
that as the default) for years.

~~~
5teev
How?!

------
justinph
It is more expensive than Netflix or an Amazon prime account. They're
different things, of course, but it seems too expensive to me. I'd probably
subscribe at about half the price, but at $180/year, I'll just clear my
cookies and/or read the Washington Post.

I work in the news media (public broadcasting), and right now the public still
sees reporting as an inexpensive commodity, especially online. Ironically, I
think public broadcasting is set up much better to garner supporting revenue
from the public than for-profit media, since we have a history of doing so,
and people inherently understand and relate to our support model. We still
give away our content for free, too, even if you don't pay. The NYTimes is
never going to be able to guilt me into paying the way NPR or PBS will.

~~~
jayzee
You cannot compare it to Amazon/Netflix. They are not creating any of the
content. NY Times is. The price includes the cost of content creation and
delivery.

~~~
ericd
Cost of delivery has gone to near 0 when amortized, but this is more expensive
than some of their dead tree subscriptions.

I know paper isn't as expensive as some might think, but most people see that
as real value. By stripping that away and keeping the price the same, I think
many people are going to feel ripped off by comparison.

~~~
donohoe

      Cost of delivery has gone to near 0 when amortized
    

You're kidding? Feed services, hosting content is free? Lets also add in the
developer salaries for this amazing electric free delivery system.

I assure you it is not near 0.

~~~
ericd
Heh I'm aware that devs aren't free, being one myself, but a few devs can
create a content distribution system that rivals the reach of a many, many
million dollar printing and delivery infrastructure. Reasonably priced servers
can serve up a shocking amount of content when caching is used properly. So,
much closer to 0, and the marginal cost of a reader is effectively 0.

~~~
donohoe
Okay - as a dev you should know that hosting is not cheap. Does it cost
Twitter nothing to 'delivery' its content?

As someone who can peak behind the curtain, I assure you that its not free.
Maybe cheaper than physical home-delivery of thew newspaper, but its not
cheap.

~~~
ericd
It should be surprisingly cheap in relative terms, not necessarily in absolute
terms. I would imagine that the NYT is much more cacheable than Twitter, given
the nature of the site.

------
w1ntermute
I hope Google News adds support for hiding sites that put their articles
behind paywalls (perhaps manually on a per-user basis, like they've added
support for in search results). I see lots of WSJ articles on Google News, and
oftentimes I click on them before looking at the source, only to end up facing
a paywall.

This problem's only going to keep getting worse as more sites start erecting
paywalls, and there are plenty of people like me who have no interest in
paying for an online news subscription and would appreciate the ability to
completely hide those sites.

~~~
jayzee
All you need to do to read those articles is to paste the title of the article
into Google and click on the first result from wsj. it will take you straight
to the full article.

~~~
w1ntermute
I didn't realize that would yield a different result from clicking on the
article from a Google News page (isn't the HTTP referrer Google either way?).
In any case, that seems like too much trouble (unless there is an extension to
automate it), so an option to hide certain domains from Google News would be
very helpful.

Not to mention there are certain news sites (Fox News, for example) which I
have no desire to visit regardless of whether they are employing a paywall.

------
theYipster
Given that I read the Times on my iPhone, iPad, and computer, I can subscribe
for $35 a month, or apparently I can subscribe to 7 day delivery, which
includes all of the above, for $22 a month and throw the paper away when it
arrives each day.

Clearly their pricing policy is off by an order of magnitude. Paying $35 a
year for everything makes sense. Paying $35 a month, given economics and the
market for online subscriptions, is nuts.

------
cschmidt
You can get free digital access if you have _any_ form of home delivery. I can
get weekday delivery for $14.80 for 4 weeks, or Sunday delivery for $15 for 4
weeks. That gets you the full $35 digital product. I'll probably get the
Sunday times delivered.

~~~
anigbrowl
I've seen a few other publishers do this too, and it seems hopelessly
perverse. If the digital edition has zero advertisements, then I can
understand that it reflects the true cost of production ( _qua_ newsgathering,
writing and editing).

But it's still going to create a perception among the public that the online
readers are subsidizing the print readers to a certain extent, and indirectly
the printing and paper companies as well. And for those who care about such
things, the ongoing consumption of about 100,000 (farmed) trees annually. If
online readers get a better deal by subscribing to the paper version and
putting it straight into the recycling bin every day, then the NYT is
encouraging them to consume in the most wasteful way possible. This also
reduces the value to advertisers, who are going to start discounting the
subscription figures proportionally to
1/(web_traffic_growth/online_subs_growth).

This isn't helped the options of NYT + smartphone edition, NYT + tablet
edition, and NYT + everything edition (crossword puzzles and other NYT
products excluded). Where is the NYT + no frills edition? I do read news on my
phone, but I prefer a bare minimum summary of important events in that
context. But apparently I must purchase a mobile app I don't want and would
never use in order to have subscriber access via the browser.

------
pyre
That's fitting. I need to log-in to read about their change to a pay-only
model!

[update]

Though:

    
    
      wget -qO- 'url' | less
    

gets me to the content just fine...

[summary]

Beginning March 28, visitors to NYTimes.com will be able to read 20 articles a
month without paying, a limit that company executives said was intended to
draw in subscription revenue from the most loyal readers while not driving
away the casual visitors who make up the vast majority of the site&rsquo;s
traffic.

Once readers click on their 21st article, they will have the option of buying
one of three digital news packages &mdash; $15 for a month of access to the
Web site and a mobile phone app; $20 for Web access and an iPad app; and $35
for an all-access plan.

~~~
donohoe
Actually, from experience, your curl request will work fine but then you'll
hit the login page after a few goes (8?)

------
tylerrooney
"The 20-article limit begins immediately for readers accessing NYTimes.com
from Canada, which allows the company time to work out any software issues
before the system goes live in the United States."

We usually have delayed launch dates in Canada (like iPhones and iPads).
Really caught the fuzzy end of that lollipop.

That said, I'm almost certain I'll start paying.

~~~
halostatue
Yeah, my reaction was "gee, thanks". It's started counting for us and I've
just burned two reading about the damned paywall.

I paid for TimeSelect before, but I'm not sure I'd pay again: I just don't
read enough from the Times to justify the cost. If I find that I need more,
then I'll happily pay it (and it looks like it'll be pay-as-you-go).

------
dr_
The NYtimes is a great publication but it can't simply be "now we are going to
charge for this". There has to be some tradeoff. For example, lately they have
been running a huge expandable ad at the top of their homepage and, quite
frankly that looks unprofessional and is annoying. So if as a subscriber they
can get rid of some of that and several other undesirable ad locations ( I
realize advertising will still be a part of their business model) then it may
be an ok proposition. The tradeoff though is that their articles will be
reaching a smaller group of readers, even with the 20 free a month.

------
ugh
I don’t know whether they will succeed but I think it‘s great that they are
trying.

~~~
InclinedPlane
They aren't trying, they are flailing around in desperation. When you start
toggling all the levers to see if one of them works you've given up trying to
understand and respond to the problem rationally and you're just hoping beyond
hope that some darwinian mutation based process will save your bacon. Most of
the time it doesn't work.

There is no easy band-aid fix for the disruption of the traditional news
media. A successful "newspaper" equivalent in 2020 will bear little
resemblance to what we consider a newspaper to be today. That alone should be
obvious. But instead of changing with the march of history the NYT has decided
to change as little as possible and hope that things work out for the best.
They may stave off immediate doom but their plan is too shallow to stave off
long-term doom.

~~~
Nrsolis
I can't see how you could come to this conclusion, but I'll play along...

What do you envision the "newspaper" of 2020 will look like? HuffPo? Please.
That rag is 75% unadulterated opinion pieces and biased claptrap.

To me, you sound like someone who is complaining that you're now going to be
expecte do pay for a high-quality product that up until now you've been
receiving for free.

I /pay/ for the WSJ, The Economist, and Forbes on Kindle. Before that option
was available to me, I paid for those subscriptions to be mailed/delivered to
my home. I'm /exactly/ the kind of customer that they want, because I have
money to spend and I will hand it over if I find value. I think their
advertisers appreciate the difference. Compare the quality of reporting
between your average local "free" newspaper and the NYTimes (or almost any
other major newspaper).

Personally, I applaud the folks at NYTimes. They've been dealt a tough hand
and they are doing their best to stay relevant.

~~~
tomjen3
I too am willing to pay for relevance, but not for news as they are filled
with the same stories, spin, stupid opinions and not nearly enough stories
that actually matter (when was the last time the nytimes destroyed a
politicians who had done something illegal?) are wetted by experts (witness
the current comments about the neuclear stuff in Japan where very little is
actually know but everybody is writing about it) and completely free of spin.

Fix those issues and I pay.

~~~
Bobby_Tables
The last time NYT destroyed a politician who had done something illegal was
March 10, 2008.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/nyregion/07prostitution.ht...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/nyregion/07prostitution.html)

~~~
tomjen3
Thats the best defence of newspapers I have seen in a long time, but that is
still:

2 two years ago

almost certainly not the worst thing that has been done (and not even very
close either)

------
trustfundbaby
I unloaded on the New York Times in a comment about 2 days ago, but I have to
say that I'm pleasantly surprised by this approach.

It allows them continue to make ad revenue as well as get subscription money
from people who really like their service (unless I'm not understanding it
clearly).

The only thing I'd suggest is prominently displaying a counter for the user
saying 'you have x pages left before you must subscribe to access this site'
or something like that .. that way they're not taken by surprise when they
can't access a story any more.

------
dsplittgerber
Why is it $15 for a smartphone subscription, but $27.99 for a Kindle
subscription that some days even doesn't include all the articles from print?

------
rmason
First I thought terrific. I would definitely pay a monthly fee to read the NYT
without ads. But then I learned I have to pay and there is still advertising.

I definitely will miss reading the paper but I am betting in less than six
months the wall will disappear. Any takers?

------
robryan
I feel that if they are going to charge, charge for the big investigative and
in depth pieces that you can't just get elsewhere. Some of the shorter stuff,
which is rehashed over many different news sites is a lot harder sell for
payment.

------
rufo
I feel like I read more than 20 articles a month just from various links, but
not enough to make it worth $15/mo. If they had some option to increase the
number of views for the rest of the month for $5 or less, I'd at least
consider it.

~~~
donohoe
Depends on who's links are sending you to the site. From the e-mail I got:

    
    
      Readers who come to Times articles through links from
      search, blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter
      will be able to read those articles, even if they have
      reached their monthly reading limit.  For some search
      engines, users will have a daily limit of free links
      to Times articles.

~~~
dpapathanasiou
So someone spoofing a referrer link with curl would have free access?

Or are you also checking those referrer links somehow, to make sure they're
legitimate?

I also take it from your other reply about curl
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2336371>) that you're using ip address,
as opposed or maybe in addition to cookies to enforce the 20 articles per
month limit.

~~~
donohoe
First, this isn't a project I worked on directly so bear that in mind in that
I cant address specific points (but will update if I learn the answers).

I will say this much; its expected that many people will find away to get
around the paywall via plugins, curl, whatever. There are no illusions about
that.

However this is not typical of your average user - that much I've seen. While
I'm sure this will happen, and it might be easy for many, it will not be
something I'd expect of most users and no something that will impact
subscriptions IMHO.

------
bryanh
I think 20 articles a month is actually quite fair, this covers most of the
uses cases of reading an article because X linked to it. It is a happy middle
ground.

I wish them the best of luck, although I don't think it will work out.

------
stellar678
5 article per day limit for people visiting from Google.

Won't this get them dropped from the search results for presenting different
content to users versus Googlebot?

~~~
patio11
Google is _not_ going to pick that fight.

They only have one competitive risk: government regulation. The only way that
happens is if their PR as cuddly bunny hugging geeks in bathrobes made of
organic llama hair get destroyed. People hoping for good PR cannot afford to
be an existential threat to the NYT.

Now if you or I did it, on the other hand... well, _maybe_ their First Click
Free policy covers us, but I wouldn't bet my business on it.

------
kellysutton
After visiting the Newseum last summer in D.C., I fully support things like
this. We need entities still doing journalism and not just creating content.

------
cianchette
Do you think they would use cookies to track usage? If so, I'm predicting that
many more people will learn how to clear their NYT cookies.

~~~
maguay
I expect they'll still require a basic free account to read your free 20
articles per month, and they they'll track it based on your account.

~~~
MarkMc
But people could just create a new free account once they reach the 20-article
limit. Perhaps they are hoping that readers will not be clever/motivated
enough to clear cookies and re-register...

------
hack_edu
1\. Go to your local library.

2\. Learn how to use their proxy for patrons working from home.

3\. Browse NYT site like normal.

~~~
msy
Or you could you know, pay for content you enjoy instead of abusing public
services to shirk paying for content.

~~~
stellar678
How, pray tell, is it abuse to use services funded by the taxes that you pay?

------
MatthewPhillips
How will this affect instapaper, read it later, readability, etc. Does this
limit apply to curl access?

~~~
starnix17
I think Instapaper's bookmarklet scrapes the page if it's behind a pay wall,
very clever.

Edit: To clarify, by scraping I mean if you are logged in and can see the
article the bookmarkelet will grab the contents of the page.

~~~
donohoe
I talked to Marco awhile back about how it works and if I remember correctly,
this is not in fact the case.

Instapaper honors access. If you have access to that Article it will save it,
if not then you won't get it.

~~~
bbatsell
What he meant is that the bookmarklet will actually scrape the content from
within your browser and submit it to Instapaper if you have access and
Instapaper's crawler doesn't. Marco has discussed that functionality on the
Build and Analyze podcast.

------
5teev
I wonder if Times Select users who paid their annual renewal fee about a month
before nytimes.com reverted to free again will receive any credit toward this
new pay scheme. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

------
edw519
1896 to March 27, 2011: "All the News That's Fit to Print"

After March 27, 2011: "All the News thats Fit to Find Somewhere Else for Free"

~~~
Gaussian
Don't be so sure. The Times is one of the few outfits where this approach may
actually work. Look at the WSJ, another such outlet -- 1 million people pay
$100/year for online access (no paper). That's $100M/year, which makes a big
difference at a newspaper. That's a lot of extra reporters.

~~~
OstiaAntica
There is a demonstrated market that will pay for financial news. Perhaps not
so much for general news.

~~~
huhtenberg
Good point. Makes one wonder how many of that 1 million subscribers are doing
it at their company's expense.

~~~
anigbrowl
Lots, but it's tax-deductible.

------
bretthopper
As someone who doesn't use the NYT as a primary source of news, but frequently
ends up there through links, I'm curious to see if/how soon I'll reach the 20
article limit.

~~~
J3L2404
From the article:

Not all visits to NYTimes.com will count toward the 20-article limit. In an
effort to ensure that as many as possible of the Web site’s more than 30
million monthly readers are not deterred from visiting, The Times will allow
access to people who visit through search engines like Google and social
networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. There will, however, be a five-
article limit a day for people who visit the site from Google.

~~~
bretthopper
Regardless, I'm just interested in seeing how often/if I'll run into any ANY
new limit NYTimes.com has.

If I don't, then this change won't matter at all.

------
whyenot
I like the content, but $196 a year is more than I'm willing to pay -- it's
twice the yearly cost of an "all you can eat" streaming Netflix subscription.

------
gyardley
This would be the price of emerging 'do not track' policies and a hostile
climate towards advertising targeting. The money's got to come from somewhere.

~~~
ericd
I don't think it's fair to pin this on disruptions in attitudes towards
advertising. The much bigger factor is that they're an industry that once had
and was structured around having a near-monopoly on mass information
distribution (diluted by radio and TV). Now they suddenly find that they don't
even have a majority hold on that anymore, and have lost almost all of their
leverage with people that want to advertise things, and it's a problem that's
been getting worse.

------
Raphael
Will this affect the Google Chrome app?

------
roadnottaken
Will they prevent multiple people from sharing the same account?

------
roadnottaken
This better include full access to their crossword puzzle app.

------
J3L2404
If I were to pay I would expect to receive only content, not ads, but I really
doubt that would be the case, so other sources await.

Edit: Although there is a pretty big loophole..

From the article: Not all visits to NYTimes.com will count toward the
20-article limit. In an effort to ensure that as many as possible of the Web
site’s more than 30 million monthly readers are not deterred from visiting,
The Times will allow access to people who visit through search engines like
Google and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. There will,
however, be a five-article limit a day for people who visit the site from
Google.

------
monochromatic
Adios, NYT. You won't be missed.

------
MatthewPhillips
First to predict complete and total failure, followed by a quick about-face
back to the ad-only model.

~~~
JohnTitus
Pretty sure people have been predicting that ever since they heard this was
coming.

