March 28, 2012

A paywall comes tumbling down.

At TNR.
This decision is in line with our desire to enable new readers to discover and share the best of what TNR’s writers produce each day....
Yes, exactly, you want to be read... as much as possible, by as many people as possible. It's all so obvious.

When will the NYT cave?

29 comments:

sakredkow said...

The NYT just tightened up. Beginning in April only ten reads (it was twenty) will be allowed to the nonsubscribers.

David said...

NYT will cave under their new ownership. The new ownership should arrive within the next five years. By then the business will be even worse than it is now but the franchise will still have value. The trust fund babies will be fed, you can count on it.

damikesc said...

Beginning in April only ten reads (it was twenty) will be allowed to the nonsubscribers.

My God, how will I continue to ignore Friedman, Krugman, etc?

Only thing worse than assuming quality is not why somebody doesn't read your stuff is preferrable to finding out for certain that quality is why they don't.

pauldar said...

Better yet, which of us will cave to read that NY Times Crapola if they are even 100% in front of the wall

rehajm said...

When Bill Cunningham, the last bit of class and dignity remaining at NYT retires, or passes, the remaining echo chamber of subscribers will realize they can receive identical content on the Yahoo! homepage and migrate accordingly. Unfortunately the editorial staff on down will continue to insist they are 'special'. Carlos Slim will throw in the towel, and NYT is the new Air America. They won't see tits up before they can drop the paywall.

John Althouse Cohen said...

The NYT just tightened up. Beginning in April only ten reads (it was twenty) will be allowed to the nonsubscribers.

Yeah, but you can freely get around it by deleting the gibberish at the end of the URL (usually after "html"). And the paywall isn't supposed to apply if you click the link from a blog, search engine, etc. So the NYT has allowed anyone who really wants to read unlimited articles online without paying to be able to do so easily.

MikeR said...

NYT is nothing. Just hit "escape" while it's loading and it will block the Javascript popup. WSJ is a lot harder to get around.

David A. Carlson said...

Cave? They just doubled down. If they truly have 500,000 subscribers, I would say they have won

crosspatch said...

When will Rasmussen learn the same lesson? I don't recall a single paywall that has been successful.

Smilin' Jack said...

NYT is nothing. Just hit "escape" while it's loading and it will block the Javascript popup.

Doesn't seem to work. What does work is hitting alt-left-arrow, then alt-right-arrow.

rehajm said...

NYClean still works today, though it may change when the 10 article limit goes into effect.

Sigivald said...

I always think "The National Republic" when I see TNR; a ridiculous blend of their real name and The National Review.

There's no good reason for it (let alone some sort of political point), but I think it's hilarious.

edutcher said...

People realize they see all the good stuff on the Gray Lady (what little there is) on Althouse, so it's no biggie.

Pinch is still going to run the rag into the ground.

Anonymous said...

Here's to hoping that the NYT also digs a paymoat, pulls up its paydrawbridge, and futher isolates itself and reduces its influence over the news.

John Stodder said...

According to Pew branded content is making a comeback via apps. I think that is why many well-known news brands are now instituting pay walls -- to take advantage of the fact that readers of iPhones and iPads, if they're being given a new experience distinct from the websites, would read news that is well-organized, a distinct element of the app experience that in part explains their popularity. I wouldn't pay for access to NYT.com, but I would pay for access to its app if the app was well-designed and functional.

Something has to give here, though. I know most of you want free information, but there is no such thing as free information. Someone is paying for it. The legacy news business isn't great at selling itself to online advertisers, sadly, but somewhere the hurdle has to be overcome. Or else there would be a lot less for bloggers to link to.

Rick Caird said...

But, TNR will still reserve the right to comment on their leftist idiocy to those who subscribe. I cannot conceive of a situation that will provoke me to pay to comment.

MikeR said...

Another thing that used to work for me was googling the title, then clicking on the link there. For whichever reason, the sites didn't want to block traffic that came from google.

crosspatch said...

"According to Pew branded content is making a comeback via apps."


I think what we are likely to see is something like what we have with cable TV. For example, with cable you get "packages" of channels. I think the ISPs like Comcast and UVerse, and FiOS will do the same. When you buy internet service with them with a "premium" package, it will included access to a bundle of paywalled sites. Problem with that is, certain sites will then get cash from the cable company whether you watch them or not and you won't be able to "unbundle" certain sites from your package. Same problem we have now with cable. If I want one channel, I have to take 10 others I don't want who now get extra money.

So to get NYT you might have to also get "premium" content from Media Matters or something.

My guess is that bundling paywalled sites into "packages" by ISPs is the next step.

Unknown said...

I think papers should offer bundles. If I could get, say, lifestyle, arts, and real estate, I would subscribe.

The "news" is the part I cannot in good conscience support.

bagoh20 said...

The reason that paywalls don't work is it's just not viable to force people to pay for something they can get for free, and in the NYT case, better stuff for free.

Lets' face it, if all the same material in the NYT was available but did not have that NYT bullshit gravitas, nobody would want it, let alone pay for it. It's pure hype. I can get reporting every bit as biased all over the place for free, but why would I want that. There is a reason, and it's not flattering.

dreams said...

NYTIMES is going from twenty free articles to ten.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Libruls are having trouble giving it away.

I'm Full of Soup said...

It's been a long long time since I last clicked on an Althouse link to the NYT.

Sydney said...

I used to read both publications regularly, but they've both gotten so bad I am not even tempted to read them for free now.

Joe Schmoe said...

I love that almost no one comments on the New Republic. I used to like it about 10 years ago when my eyes were opening to thoughtful commentary and opinion, but I quickly tired of its constant contrarianism. They tried to be too smart by half on just about every issue. I got sick of it and can't imagine I'll read even the free version now. If Jonathan Chait still writes there, I'll definitely give it wide berth.

Believe it or not, the writer I liked the most in TNR was Andrew Sullivan. I can't stand him now, but I liked him about 10 years ago.

XRay said...

That's funny, Joe. I was a thirty year subscriber to TNR, then within a year of Andrew taking over as editor wrote them a polite note that I thought he was an insane asshole and canceled my subscription.

I've sampled TNR on-line since then but have found that the rot continued, no matter Marty's best efforts. So, I'll not read them free or not.

Skippy said...

The LA Times erected a pay wall recently. In order to use it as a paying subscriber to the paper, they link it to one's facebook account.

sonicfrog said...

Yep. I've definitely noticed no one talks or writes much edipm about what Krugman or Dowd writes anymore. Does that Freidman guy still even work there?

amba said...

Smart! and welcome.