5 ms·

Observations-New York Times Paywall: What everyone else seems to be missing

andrewcooke 15y ago
i've not noticed this paywall at all. do anti-tracking plugins (adblock, ghostery, disconnect) zap the cookies or whatever that it uses? or is it perhaps only for americans? (i realise it's not immediate, but i follow links there fairly regularly and have never exceeded any quota).
- seldo 15y ago
  It depends how regularly. If you visit more than 20 times a month (in the same browser, see my other comment) then you should hit it.
- jeremymims 15y ago
  You might be right that these plugins block cookies or the javascript that informs you that you've hit your limit. They've tried to make the paywall as permeable as possible. For instance, if you follow a link from twitter or facebook it wouldn't count. But if you went to the NYTimes directly, it would. The idea is to tax heavy users and those who have more money than time. It's far from conclusive, but this trend is a disturbing one.
  - dreamdu5t 15y ago
    Why is this disturbing, exactly? Do you feel journalists should write articles for free?
    - redthrowaway 15y ago
      Because clearly paywalls are the only way a journalist can possibly get paid, right?
      - dreamdu5t 15y ago
        No, the other way is to sell articles individually. Why are you being obtuse? Why is purchasing by subscription bad, but selling articles individually good? There are benefits to both. Personally, I'd rather pay a subscription because I read a lot of articles and buying them individually would be a pain in the ass.
        lloydarmbrust 15y ago
        Newspapers have been subsidized by advertising for over 100 years, why are we trying to make money from subscriptions now?
        dreamdu5t 15y ago
        Because advertising wasn't covering NYT's costs, and easily allows people to scrape and replicate your content elseware without ads. If NYT was able to stay profitable with ads on their site, they wouldn't have thrown up the paywall to begin with.
- totalc 15y ago
  Adblock does not allow you to dodge the paywall, from personal experience. There is an easy way to escape the paywall: After a new page opens, wait for the text to load, then after the text is loaded but the rest of the site's infrastructure is still loading, hit Escape to stop loading. Whatever code is responsible for summoning the paywall GUI never finishes loading. This solution does not work well when trying to open multiple NYT tabs, however.
  - usaar333 15y ago
    I find that the easiest way to escape is to go incognito in chrome.
seldo 15y ago
Another possible explanation is that the way Quantcast and others count unique visitors is broken: they don't (/can't) take into account multiple computers and multiple browsers. If the NY Times paywall has user-level tracking (I'm not sure if it does, but sometimes the NYTimes asks me to log in to read articles, so it may do) then a bunch of people who are now hitting their quota browsing across multiple machines and browsers with a single login were previously being counted as multiple uniques.
- danso 15y ago
  The NYT has had user accounts since at least 1999...I've had the same login name as I had about 10 years ago.
  - eli 15y ago
    Notably, though, the account is not required.
    - seldo 15y ago
      My point exactly. I know the accounts exist, I wasn't sure if they'd made login mandatory after the paywall went up.
- cincinnatus 15y ago
  Actually uniques should have gone up from people dodging the paywall with multiple machines/browsers.
rmason 15y ago
You can reach your limit on one browser, then read another twenty on another browser. Despite that I have probably cut my reading in half. I found the NYT had some of the most relevant ads of any site that I visit. As a result I am clicking on fewer ads and resulting in less revenue for them, but I may be atypical. The whole paywall has encouraged me to check out other sites for news. The BBC I've found to be terrific and offers background articles on American issues not seen in any US paper.
- adamjernst 15y ago
  If the argument you're making is "the free market is working because the paywall is driving traffic to other news vendors," keep in mind that the BBC is taxpayer-subsidized by Britain's citizens—and many of them aren't too happy about it. (I don't know if you're making this argument or not. Just an observation.)
  - contrast 15y ago
    Many of Britain's citizens aren't too happy about free speech, either. But we try not to pay too much attention to them.
kalmar 15y ago
A possible contribution to the decrease that was not mentioned is that they may be linked to less often because of the pay wall. For general news, a blogger might instead link to some other, more reliably visitable site. When the Montreal Gazette introduced their pay wall at least one blog I follow avoided linking there when there was another source.
- cincinnatus 15y ago
  Indeed I would think most bloggers would look for alternate sources. I also find I tend not to follow links if they are identified as NYT, and the loss of the ability to push links to Instapaper has really killed NYT for me.
sixtofour 15y ago
It's a pay wall. Which means someone is paying to get through the wall, where less people were paying before the wall. What I'd like to see is total revenue per. Per unique, per view, per registered subscriber, per something. It may (or may not) be that NYT has lost the battle but won the war for revenue and profit.

i've not noticed this paywall at all. do anti-tracking plugins (adblock, ghostery, disconnect) zap the cookies or whatever that it uses? or is it perhaps only for americans? (i realise it's not immediate, but i follow links there fairly regularly and have never exceeded any quota).

seldo 15y ago
It depends how regularly. If you visit more than 20 times a month (in the same browser, see my other comment) then you should hit it.
jeremymims 15y ago
You might be right that these plugins block cookies or the javascript that informs you that you've hit your limit. They've tried to make the paywall as permeable as possible. For instance, if you follow a link from twitter or facebook it wouldn't count. But if you went to the NYTimes directly, it would. The idea is to tax heavy users and those who have more money than time. It's far from conclusive, but this trend is a disturbing one.
- dreamdu5t 15y ago
  Why is this disturbing, exactly? Do you feel journalists should write articles for free?
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    Because clearly paywalls are the only way a journalist can possibly get paid, right?
    - dreamdu5t 15y ago
      No, the other way is to sell articles individually. Why are you being obtuse? Why is purchasing by subscription bad, but selling articles individually good? There are benefits to both. Personally, I'd rather pay a subscription because I read a lot of articles and buying them individually would be a pain in the ass.
      - lloydarmbrust 15y ago
        Newspapers have been subsidized by advertising for over 100 years, why are we trying to make money from subscriptions now?
        dreamdu5t 15y ago
        Because advertising wasn't covering NYT's costs, and easily allows people to scrape and replicate your content elseware without ads. If NYT was able to stay profitable with ads on their site, they wouldn't have thrown up the paywall to begin with.
totalc 15y ago
Adblock does not allow you to dodge the paywall, from personal experience. There is an easy way to escape the paywall: After a new page opens, wait for the text to load, then after the text is loaded but the rest of the site's infrastructure is still loading, hit Escape to stop loading. Whatever code is responsible for summoning the paywall GUI never finishes loading. This solution does not work well when trying to open multiple NYT tabs, however.
- usaar333 15y ago
  I find that the easiest way to escape is to go incognito in chrome.

seldo 15y ago

Another possible explanation is that the way Quantcast and others count unique visitors is broken: they don't (/can't) take into account multiple computers and multiple browsers. If the NY Times paywall has user-level tracking (I'm not sure if it does, but sometimes the NYTimes asks me to log in to read articles, so it may do) then a bunch of people who are now hitting their quota browsing across multiple machines and browsers with a single login were previously being counted as multiple uniques.

danso 15y ago
The NYT has had user accounts since at least 1999...I've had the same login name as I had about 10 years ago.
- eli 15y ago
  Notably, though, the account is not required.
  - seldo 15y ago
    My point exactly. I know the accounts exist, I wasn't sure if they'd made login mandatory after the paywall went up.
cincinnatus 15y ago
Actually uniques should have gone up from people dodging the paywall with multiple machines/browsers.

rmason 15y ago

You can reach your limit on one browser, then read another twenty on another browser. Despite that I have probably cut my reading in half. I found the NYT had some of the most relevant ads of any site that I visit. As a result I am clicking on fewer ads and resulting in less revenue for them, but I may be atypical. The whole paywall has encouraged me to check out other sites for news. The BBC I've found to be terrific and offers background articles on American issues not seen in any US paper.

adamjernst 15y ago
If the argument you're making is "the free market is working because the paywall is driving traffic to other news vendors," keep in mind that the BBC is taxpayer-subsidized by Britain's citizens—and many of them aren't too happy about it. (I don't know if you're making this argument or not. Just an observation.)
- contrast 15y ago
  Many of Britain's citizens aren't too happy about free speech, either. But we try not to pay too much attention to them.

kalmar 15y ago

A possible contribution to the decrease that was not mentioned is that they may be linked to less often because of the pay wall. For general news, a blogger might instead link to some other, more reliably visitable site. When the Montreal Gazette introduced their pay wall at least one blog I follow avoided linking there when there was another source.

cincinnatus 15y ago
Indeed I would think most bloggers would look for alternate sources. I also find I tend not to follow links if they are identified as NYT, and the loss of the ability to push links to Instapaper has really killed NYT for me.

sixtofour 15y ago

It's a pay wall. Which means someone is paying to get through the wall, where less people were paying before the wall. What I'd like to see is total revenue per. Per unique, per view, per registered subscriber, per something. It may (or may not) be that NYT has lost the battle but won the war for revenue and profit.