New York Times Ends Its Paid Subscription Service 169
Mike writes "The New York Times has announced that it will end its paid Internet service in favor of making most of its Web site available for free. The hope is that this move will attract more readers and higher advertising revenue. 'The longer-term problem for publishers like the Times is that they must find ways to present content online rather than just transferring stories and pictures from the newspaper. Most U.S. news Web sites offer their contents for free, supporting themselves by selling advertising. One exception is The Wall Street Journal which runs a subscription-based Web site. TimesSelect generated about $10 million in revenue a year. Schiller declined to project how much higher the online growth rate would be without charging visitors.'"
Thank God (Score:5, Interesting)
First, Open the archives... (Score:3, Interesting)
Second thing is allow commenting on stories, but then you'll be flamed by the readers.
Heaven forbid the old gray lady figure out why people don't read her pages any more. We've been trying to clue her in for years now.
Crossword? (Score:4, Interesting)
Times Reader (Score:4, Interesting)
One would think that there are two sure-proof things NY Times could do to secure large audience for their advertisers.
1. Their image as a respect newspaper, not just NY, not just US, but world-wide. Their journalists are respected, and their content verified, their analysis intelligent.
2. Better presentation than the average site.
Well, Times Reader is that point 2. If they gave me the reader for free, I'll most likely to there for my shot of news and editorials, since it's simply better than browsing a web site.
And hence, the NY Times won't have to compete with the other blogs and sites as much as if they remained free only in-browser.
Re:Too late the damage has already been done (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, to be fair, the OP's point could be restated that the "pay wall" did nothing to increase their columnist's influence in the wider world, particularly with younger readers. Personally, I think Friedman is an astute observer but an overrated writer who suffers from being overly-excitable with respect to his own ideas.
The Times' decision is a good one. The irony, for me at least, is that I now have it delivered daily. I had high hopes for reading it on-line (this was in the days before the redesign when it was ugly to look at it ), but I shelved that idea. The Times is one of the few newspapers that's worth reading in its entirety, and reading it on-line interfered with that. The limitations of a computer screen are one thing, but cherry-picking articles seems to encourage a less informed, if not insular experience. It's like talking only to people who have the same ideas and opinions as you have -- comforting, perhaps, but uninteresting. I think it's much more valuable to take the time and sit down with and have discussions with people you don't agree with on subjects that have greater importance (or interest) than would appear to a casual observer.
I'm sure they will never be able to duplicate the fun of doing the crossword with a pen (or pencil) in one hand, and your morning coffee in the other, but for people elsewhere in the world who read the paper, I'm sure they don't mind.
OK, but its nice to have the option (Score:5, Interesting)
Although these days there is less point paying for a single publication/site. NYTimes seems good, but as a non-citizen it was never enough to pay for...
Re:Great! (Score:5, Interesting)
You could have anyway. Registgration is free, and if you get your back up about that, it'll take you about five minutes with Google to find a publically posted login and password that will work.
What's more important maybe is it sounds like they have opened up the archives. Maybe now if you want to find out about how good a job Donald Rumsfeld did in his first term as Defense Secretary in the Ford administration or want to track down details on CDCs suite against IBM, you can do so without spending a fortune.
Of yeah, and now I think we can read the columnists. that's a mixed blessing for sure, but Krugman's economic views are widely respected and it's annoying to have to wait for someone to break copyright and post them elsewhere.
Re:Um...why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Public libraries (Score:3, Interesting)
If you consider it, public libraries really are quite extraordinary institutions. They fly in the face of the intellectual property industry, and actually they are under enormous pressure. If they weren't so popular, they'd have been wiped out long ago. Talk to a head librarian sometime about just how hostile publishers are to public libraries. Despite their popularity, I expect to see more attacks on their existence.
In northeastern cities like Chicago, the libraries are plentiful and well-stocked. When traveling to some less progressive areas of the US, I have not found this to be the case. I've seen libraries in medium-sized places in Kansas or Texas that would make you cry. Let me put it this way: you won't find any Henry Miller or D.H. Lawrence novels there, but lots of copies of the Left Behind series. Of course, if you go to Austin, TX or Lawrence, KA, you'll find wonderful libraries, but only because the educated population from the universities there have tempered the indigenous ignorance, of which they are quite proud.