Posts from — March 2011

So, apparently today is the day I stop reading the New York Times.¹

I don’t think I will be alone. I expect a substantial number of people will forego reading the Times on-line in the near future, and instead just turn to other news sources. I don’t begrudge the Times trying to wring every penny out of their readers and advertisers–running a top-tier newspaper is expensive and difficult.  I just think the paywall is destined to fail.

Primarily, I think the Times is overly reliant on the idea that they add such value in their reportage (or have sufficient “brand loyalty” from readers) that people will be willing to pay for access, when other options of equal or better quality are available at no cost to the reader. After all, most Americans get their news from TV, and every additional barrier or cost to access the Times will press readers and viewers towards free sources.²

These free sources–CNN, the BBC, TV news, the Washington Post, Slate, Salon–aren’t “free,” of course. Their costs are borne by advertising–as are the costs of the Times‘s operations.  The Times decision to charge for what their direct competition is providing at no cost just seems like an unsustainable choice.

1. I thought I would keep reading it through the end of the year, through a courtesy subscription from Lincoln, but a glitch in the Chrome browser meant I never saw the button to respond and I missed the window for response. The email rendered correctly in Firefox, I would note, but since I tend to use Chrome I didn’t discover the issue until too late. I abandoned Chrome immediately after discovering this epic fail. Eat death, Chrome!!
2. Yes, I know there are easy ways to circumvent the paywall. I won’t be doing that either. The Times has the right to set its price. I’m just not going to pay it. I’ll be reading The Economist, Washington Post, L.A. Times, and the BBC online instead. In other words, what I read before, minus the NYT.