Comments on: The NYT’s paywall

By: SimonBrady

SimonBrady — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:22:53 +0000

Well this is all a bit self-serving isn’t it? A blogger with no responsibility for generating the money to pay him and who admits that the value of his blog is predicated on links back to good (and expensive to produce) journalism criticizes an organization that has to pay its staff for charging for the product that they produce and upon which his blog has hitherto relied. And furthermore, he recommends his own employers’ content which, where it is not charged for (and lots of Reuters content is), is a cross-subsidy for other media services which do have to make a profit. It seems to me that you all want good free content and therefore explicitly accept the advertising driven model without realizing that dependence on advertising is a threat to the quality you once respected. If you won’t pay for properly verified and investigated content, and are happy to accept the vagaries and problems of the blogosphere, then fine. But don’t criticize people for trying to make the money to pay their staff with.

By: Ghandiolfini

Ghandiolfini — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 10:56:10 +0000

…Felix, I suppose what I am saying is that I am not a big fan of video clips, but would like Radio Reuters – a service that plays uninterrupted music for 55 minutes with a 5 minute news headlines every hour. Low bandwidth consumption please.

By: ReutersRat

ReutersRat — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 05:00:08 +0000

If anyone wants to calc in the numbers on the cost of printing and delivering the actual papers, I pulled them together here:

http://eatsleeppublish.com/can-jason-sav e-the-newspapers/

By: gregspielberg

gregspielberg — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:38:37 +0000

Great piece and fair reaction. Not sure that the NYT’s exploration of partnership options signifies desperation. Seems like the opposite; otherwise, why partner?

What’s most interesting to me is thinking about paywall communities. If Facebook started charging $5 a month, would internal communities be any less robust? I don’t think so. As journalism companies get stronger at connecting people, the communal aspect will be part of the draw and a perk of the price of entry.

The link problem you bring up is big, but it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposal. The NYT can create links for influential bloggers that are functional for the bloggers’ readers but can’t be tossed around on FB, TW, email etc.

By: klintron

klintron — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:06:03 +0000

I can’t help but notice that all the old IHT links work now, they just redirect to the NYT site. And they’re not behind a paywall (but they are behind the standard NYT registration wall).

I didn’t even know the FT had a “meter” until the NYT meter rumors started. I occasionally read articles there and occasionally link to them. I read and link to NYT articles far more frequently, but given a sufficiently generous meter (say, 20 articles a month) I don’t see why this would be a problem for me or for most readers and bloggers.

By: fragmatic

fragmatic — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:42:19 +0000

” If they start charging, they’re going to lose me!”

And their employees, roofers, landlords, electric companies etc say, “If they stop paying me, they’re going to lose me.”

When push comes to shove, they’re not going to care about losing readers that won’t pay their fair share of the costs out of some strange ideological objection.

Let’s just see how long Mr. Felix Salmon keeps his job after the last newspaper goes out of business and stops paying Reuters.

By: michtom

michtom — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:29:32 +0000

Along with Reuters is McClatchey, which has been giving readers the only consistently truthful reporting on US imperialism of all the US mainstream news sources.

By: Ghandiolfini

Ghandiolfini — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 08:24:50 +0000

I suppose it depends on the ‘mix’ of news that one desires. I prefer a superficial global balance, through a variety of mediums as it moves through my real-time-lines during my ‘awake’ day:

1. Television which I get while at home/working at home – CNN, BBC, EuroNews; AJE, Russia Today; (Asia-Pacific really lacks in this regard);
2. Radio which I get via my hifi/mobile while working and traveling;
3. Lamp-Posters of headlines as I travel;
4. Reuters during breaks or by choice.

So in a way my cell phone, internet and satellite TV subscriptions already costs me +- $ 100 + $150 + $50 = $ 300 converted in local parity, which forms 5% of my budget before taxes, which is actually high when one starts adding up all the rats and mice and considering that the service provider capital infrastructures should by now be paid off after, say 20 years.

One should also distinguish between newswires and news presenters, the latter buying and feeding from the former and the former supplying both, mostly by monopoly ?

In modern times I really don’t know where people find time to read print anymore, it is environmentally not PC anyway and the detail depresses and confuses me.

I hope Agnes Crane’s article is not prepping us to start paying for this globally inconsistent and messy website. I only have time for headlines and superficial opinion and blogging with the fun factor driving me.

As always the answer lays/lies in the maths, i.e. after representative surveys, calculating contribution per unit for above options by subtracting variable unit costs from matching unit revenue streams and optimizing the options, while considering fixed costs, which I doubt the NYT did, which is why they have become desperate.

By: nicfulton

nicfulton — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:38:09 +0000

Felix – isn’t a really key question here just where the meter-level is set that converts to “subscription needed”? Let’s say they set it at 60 articles / month. How many of those people clicking through on a link from your blog would be affected? 1%? 3%? 5%? I can’t imagine that more than 5% of unique visitors to NYTimes would hit 60/month level, so the impact is pretty small. However, those hitting 60/month are almost the definition of regular readers and maybe they’ll understand the value they are getting from the paper (albeit in online form) and be willing subscribers. At that point your link works all the time – right?

By: Taron-M

Taron-M — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:52:20 +0000

Also, web advertising doesn’t generate the same revenue as print or television advertising. And advertising isn’t a stable revenue generator, especially in difficult financial times. I’m confident that you’ll see the Internet eventually switch away from free content to pay-for-use content…like most other businesses. I don’t recall seeing McDonalds offering free food paid for by advertisers. If it was a good business model, I’m sure they’d be all over it.

By: Taron-M

Taron-M — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:43:04 +0000

It’s a matter of staying in business by charging for their product. Those who would like it to stay free should go to work tomorrow and work for free. It won’t take them very long to figure free doesn’t work.

By: tomforemski

tomforemski — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:41:59 +0000

I’m not sure I understand your logic about not linking to NYT. Your readers, if they are casual ones of the New York Times will not come up against the paywall. If they are already frequent readers then they will subscribe or decide to get their news elsewhere. Either way they will be counted as casual readers by NYT. Also, most people don’t click through to the source anyway, as the recent Google News study showed – they look at headline and first para – cherry on the cake… You can cherry pick too :)

By: Haqi

Haqi — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 02:46:27 +0000

I’ve been buying and reading the NYTimes since the early 1960s, now online in China. If they start charging, they’re going to lose me!

By: SLPNYC

SLPNYC — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:21:22 +0000

There is a big difference between “raw news” and professional journalism. One is given for free and generally in the personal opinion of the writer and the other is prepared by a paid professionally trained journalist who has learned how to research and leave him/herself out of the story.

I prefer the latter. It costs money. I subscribe to the NYT and it is delivered to my door 7 days a week but I often read stories on line and certainly breaking news.

Now I suppose you think I am going to say that I think converting to a pay site will work. The fact that I think that is a business model that is fair doesn’t mean it will work or I think it will work. It probably will not. See Slate for a good list of why not. http://www.slate.com/id/2242085/?from=rs s

BUT THEN AGAIN I THINK THE NYTIMES IS BEING VERY SHORTSIGHTED ABOUT ONE THING. Advertising will work on their site (meaning it will work for the advertiser and the advertiser will pay for the audience) if the NY TIMES would treat their site like a network news site, many of which require that you watch a 10, 15 or 30 second ad before watching the clip on a breaking story.

We the reader might not like have to watch the ad, but we accept it. It is what broadcast news has been doing for 50 years. You are told the headlines, you are hooked, then the ads play, then the lead story or breaking news piece. Instead of metering how many articles you can read before the screen goes blank they just have to meter how many articles you have looked at before making you watch another ad. We are use to that and even when we pretend to ignore the ad, somehow the message usually gets through.

By: terrapin

terrapin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:10:36 +0000

RhoKen: You don’t need to miss anything. No one is going away. Just pay for the darn thing. It’s not free to produce, and it’s worth it.