Slog
News & ArtsWednesday, January 20, 2010
Media New York Times Will Charge for (Frequent) Access to its Site
Posted by Eli Sanders on Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 9:19 AM
It's been rumored for a while, and now the Times confirms it:
Starting in early 2011, visitors to NYTimes.com will get a certain number of articles free every month before being asked to pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the newspaper’s print edition will receive full access to the site.
It took the paper a year to come to this decision, and it's going to take another year for its executives to answer "fundamental questions," like, oh, how much it will cost per non-free click. In the meantime: click click click while it still costs nothing!
1
Ha Ha Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
So long, NYT. I've only got about a million other places to check for the same info without paying a cent.
So long, NYT. I've only got about a million other places to check for the same info without paying a cent.
2
Or maybe you're the stupid one, @1. This is the wave of the future, and once other papers see that NYT is making money by doing this, they won't be far behind.
3
NYT did charge for awhile and it did not work out for them. I click on NYT 10 or more times a day, but I won't pay. Nor would I pay for SLOG for that matter.
5
Me too, Gus. These fucking hipsters who think they have a God-given right to get something for nothing crack me up sometimes.
6
Most likely the article view count system will be IP based and really easy to circumvent. NYT won't rack up any huge subscriptions from desktop users, they'll just prevent all the casual "click-throughs" from news aggregators (digg, google news, reddit etc.). Those short, casual visits drive up their page view count, which in turn drives up ad prices which lead to revenue.
They better have something else up their sleeve because no way in hell will the revenue lost from lower ad prices will be made up by subscription fees if the current model is maintained. I'd say leave the standard site free and ad supported and then write a really slick, cross platform, mobile application, kind of like what they do for the kindle. Charge a subscription fee for a full version but still offer an ad supported "lite" version with top stories only. Maybe they could even strike a deal with a phone carrier and include 3 months of NYT free. People are more willing to pay to not have something taken away than they are for something new.
Check out this book, "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" by Chris Anderson (http://www.amazon.com/Free-Future-Radica…). I'm not finished with it yet but he really has some great insight as to how a company like Google can make it big while other industries are failing. I think everyone, especially those in media, should give a read.
They better have something else up their sleeve because no way in hell will the revenue lost from lower ad prices will be made up by subscription fees if the current model is maintained. I'd say leave the standard site free and ad supported and then write a really slick, cross platform, mobile application, kind of like what they do for the kindle. Charge a subscription fee for a full version but still offer an ad supported "lite" version with top stories only. Maybe they could even strike a deal with a phone carrier and include 3 months of NYT free. People are more willing to pay to not have something taken away than they are for something new.
Check out this book, "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" by Chris Anderson (http://www.amazon.com/Free-Future-Radica…). I'm not finished with it yet but he really has some great insight as to how a company like Google can make it big while other industries are failing. I think everyone, especially those in media, should give a read.
7
I will play along and pay for online access to the NYT, but I truly don't believe this system will work. Particularly after attending that lecture about the history and future of news at Town Hall last night (thanks, Stranger Suggests!), I'm more convinced than ever that online newspaper subscriptions will fail.
10
@5,
Not that I have any great love for hipsters, but in my experience it's the average Joes/Janes who are most determined to justify getting everything for free. At least hipsters actually go to shows and support the artists they like that way.
Not that I have any great love for hipsters, but in my experience it's the average Joes/Janes who are most determined to justify getting everything for free. At least hipsters actually go to shows and support the artists they like that way.
13
OK, so since I only subscribe to the sunday times will I still be able to access all content for free?
14
I would certainly think so, Emma, since you'll still be paying more than what they'll be charging for Internet access alone.
15
Thanks, 5280. Did they say what they will be charging for web access? I thought that was not being disclosed yet.
16
I think I read something in the paper to the effect that they were looking at a price in the $50 a year range, but that this number hadn't been finalized yet.
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