This is all true, but the key point here is that NYT is one of, if not the most, valuable brand in US print media. They had the money to hire a world-class engi

This is all true, but the key point here is that NYT is one of, if not the most, valuable brand in US print media. They had the money to hire a world-class engineering team to pioneer the print news experience online (the creator of D3js and Svelte have both held engineering positions there), but the vast majority of print publications did not. It's not really accurate to extrapolate NYT's digital success across print media as a whole.