So they're lowing their relevance, and hn readers find this unappealing, fine, but can we really view this as anything but a hopeful indication that they drive

So they're lowing their relevance, and hn readers find this unappealing, fine, but can we really view this as anything but a hopeful indication that they drive more revenue by bringing the wall forward by ten articles. The nytimes paywall has never been popular among the tech crowd, for obvious reasons, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work. In my mind there are two possible things going on here: 1. The paywall is working to a degree, they have tested a reduced number of free articles and it leads to a higher conversion, and they are making this move to increase revenue. 2. The paywall is failing, an executive is concerned about meeting their revenue targets, and is going forward with an untested free article decrease as a ditch effort. Let's hope it's the first, or at least a vaguely responsible combination of the two.