6 ms·

How the NYT paywall is working

h1srf 14y ago
I pay for it and I think it's worth it for the quality of reporting.
btown 14y ago
Has there ever been an industry-wide study of this? i.e. which/how many startups saw increases in revenue/signups after putting more content behind a paywall?
poblano 14y ago
I think the explanation is much more simple: it's working because most people aren't tech-savvy enough to figure out the loopholes and feel comfortable using them on a regular basis. Kind of an interesting form of freemium business model, actually...
- mattmanser 14y ago
  Did you just read the title and post? The entire article is about the email and tweets he got saying exactly this. And then him debunking this position. Not very convincingly, but anyway. It's the opening paragraph.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  I'm tech savvy enough to dodge the paywall, but I'm also a paying NYT subscriber. I do it because traditional journalism has nearly completely collapsed, and I don't want to see a world that's solely dominated by TechCrunch, Engadget, Gizmodo-style, he-said-she-said bloggery. In the last year I've made a concerted effort to subscribe to media sources that have quality reporting and/or writing.
  - poblano 14y ago
    That's wonderful, truly noble -- seriously -- but you, OP, and people like you are probably a very small group, at least compared to the masses of people who are paying simply because they don't know how to jump the paywall (or find it unpleasant to). If the paywall is "working", aka "making money for the NYT," it's mainly because of the techno-illiterates.
- jetti 14y ago
  Just like in the article, I beg to disagree. This reminded me of an article I saw a while back (which I can't find at the moment) of a guy who brought donuts into work and then quit his job to start his bakery. He would bring in donuts and then realize that he wasn't getting enough money to cover the donuts when charging per donut so what he did was put out a tip/donation basket/jar and would have a sign stating donations accepted. Turned out he would make more per location doing that than if he charged per donut. He attributed this to the fact that in a group setting people would feel guilty not contributing as well as people's conscious coming into play. (Please forgive the butchering of my recount of the tale and if anybody has a link it would be appreciated if they could post) Your explanation is incredibly cynical and suggests that people are all completely self-centered and lack empathy. There are still people who will pay for things that bring them value and recognize hard work that goes into a product. It is the same reason why people donate to open source projects. They don't need to. They could easily use the project and be on their way.
zwtaylor 14y ago
If you delete the entirety of the URL past the ".html" on a blocked NYT article you can bypass the paywall.
- cheddarmint 14y ago
  Yep. I wonder if they track stats on how many people do that.
gacba 14y ago
That article is a year old.
danielweber 14y ago
Some people will try to steal anything, even if it's nailed down. And some people will respect the sign that says "limit 1 free, otherwise please drop $5 in this slot." Sometimes you have to help the second group by not making them feel like suckers, but they are a much easier group to rely on to pay your rent.
jeremymims 14y ago
Newspapers have historically earned about 80% of their revenue from advertisers and about 20% from subscriptions. However, newspapers typically lose money on these subscriptions since the cost of producing and delivering paper outstrips the revenue. It is advertising that subsidizes most of what people think content and delivery costs. - The true unburdened cost of a yearly New York Times subscription in paper is north of $1000. Advertisers cover 70-80% of this cost. - Uniques to nytimes.com are down approximately 20% since paywall implementation. This wasn't supposed to be the case. A porous paywall should lower pageviews but not uniques. This suggests that users are being trained to assume that they cannot access the Times even when they can. This is certainly a harbinger of a decline in influence. - Pageviews are down significantly as well. - Most of the nytimes digital subscribers are print subscriber dollars that they've allocated to the digital product. The problem is that newspapers with paywalls are now optimizing their business to run on the 20% of revenue they never actually used to have instead of advertising which has historically paid the bills. While some may believe this is necessary, I think there are better solutions (especially on the local newspaper level).
- TylerE 14y ago
  > The problem is that newspapers with paywalls are now optimizing their business to run on the 20% of revenue they never actually used to have instead of advertising which has historically paid the bills. That's a gross oversimplification. Online ad revenue isn't even in the same zip code as print ad revenue. While I can't really discuss our actual ad rates, it is a significant difference. The sites I run, 3 daily newspapers, total print circ is ~80k for all 3 combined - would barely pay for my salary and the servers from ad revenue, if that. Certainly wouldn't pay for the newsroom. Since we went to a moderately strict paywall (approx 50% of stories are paywalled - typically the in-depth stuff) - page views are done a bit, but subscription revenue is up more than enough to compensate for the loss in page views. It's an old saw, but it's true: Print dollars become digital dimes.
  - jeremymims 14y ago
    The reason I go with the simple analysis is because most people aren't aware that their newspaper costs quite a bit more than the subscription cost. I'd be really interested in hearing what's working for you and what isn't. Shoot me an e-mail and we can chat: j@ownlocal.com
SeanDav 14y ago
WSJ and FT caster to a more exclusive and professional audience who generally have to read their articles in order to stay current, therefore they can easily have a subscription only business model.
djahng 14y ago
One site, I think the LA Times, would show your the entire article but then redirect you to their pay page after a few seconds. I just turned off javascript and it solved that issue...

h1srf 14y ago

I pay for it and I think it's worth it for the quality of reporting.

btown 14y ago

Has there ever been an industry-wide study of this? i.e. which/how many startups saw increases in revenue/signups after putting more content behind a paywall?

poblano 14y ago

I think the explanation is much more simple: it's working because most people aren't tech-savvy enough to figure out the loopholes and feel comfortable using them on a regular basis. Kind of an interesting form of freemium business model, actually...

mattmanser 14y ago
Did you just read the title and post? The entire article is about the email and tweets he got saying exactly this. And then him debunking this position. Not very convincingly, but anyway. It's the opening paragraph.
potatolicious 14y ago
I'm tech savvy enough to dodge the paywall, but I'm also a paying NYT subscriber. I do it because traditional journalism has nearly completely collapsed, and I don't want to see a world that's solely dominated by TechCrunch, Engadget, Gizmodo-style, he-said-she-said bloggery. In the last year I've made a concerted effort to subscribe to media sources that have quality reporting and/or writing.
- poblano 14y ago
  That's wonderful, truly noble -- seriously -- but you, OP, and people like you are probably a very small group, at least compared to the masses of people who are paying simply because they don't know how to jump the paywall (or find it unpleasant to). If the paywall is "working", aka "making money for the NYT," it's mainly because of the techno-illiterates.
jetti 14y ago
Just like in the article, I beg to disagree. This reminded me of an article I saw a while back (which I can't find at the moment) of a guy who brought donuts into work and then quit his job to start his bakery. He would bring in donuts and then realize that he wasn't getting enough money to cover the donuts when charging per donut so what he did was put out a tip/donation basket/jar and would have a sign stating donations accepted. Turned out he would make more per location doing that than if he charged per donut. He attributed this to the fact that in a group setting people would feel guilty not contributing as well as people's conscious coming into play. (Please forgive the butchering of my recount of the tale and if anybody has a link it would be appreciated if they could post) Your explanation is incredibly cynical and suggests that people are all completely self-centered and lack empathy. There are still people who will pay for things that bring them value and recognize hard work that goes into a product. It is the same reason why people donate to open source projects. They don't need to. They could easily use the project and be on their way.

zwtaylor 14y ago

If you delete the entirety of the URL past the ".html" on a blocked NYT article you can bypass the paywall.

cheddarmint 14y ago
Yep. I wonder if they track stats on how many people do that.

gacba 14y ago

That article is a year old.

danielweber 14y ago

Some people will try to steal anything, even if it's nailed down. And some people will respect the sign that says "limit 1 free, otherwise please drop $5 in this slot." Sometimes you have to help the second group by not making them feel like suckers, but they are a much easier group to rely on to pay your rent.

jeremymims 14y ago

Newspapers have historically earned about 80% of their revenue from advertisers and about 20% from subscriptions. However, newspapers typically lose money on these subscriptions since the cost of producing and delivering paper outstrips the revenue. It is advertising that subsidizes most of what people think content and delivery costs. - The true unburdened cost of a yearly New York Times subscription in paper is north of $1000. Advertisers cover 70-80% of this cost. - Uniques to nytimes.com are down approximately 20% since paywall implementation. This wasn't supposed to be the case. A porous paywall should lower pageviews but not uniques. This suggests that users are being trained to assume that they cannot access the Times even when they can. This is certainly a harbinger of a decline in influence. - Pageviews are down significantly as well. - Most of the nytimes digital subscribers are print subscriber dollars that they've allocated to the digital product. The problem is that newspapers with paywalls are now optimizing their business to run on the 20% of revenue they never actually used to have instead of advertising which has historically paid the bills. While some may believe this is necessary, I think there are better solutions (especially on the local newspaper level).

TylerE 14y ago
> The problem is that newspapers with paywalls are now optimizing their business to run on the 20% of revenue they never actually used to have instead of advertising which has historically paid the bills. That's a gross oversimplification. Online ad revenue isn't even in the same zip code as print ad revenue. While I can't really discuss our actual ad rates, it is a significant difference. The sites I run, 3 daily newspapers, total print circ is ~80k for all 3 combined - would barely pay for my salary and the servers from ad revenue, if that. Certainly wouldn't pay for the newsroom. Since we went to a moderately strict paywall (approx 50% of stories are paywalled - typically the in-depth stuff) - page views are done a bit, but subscription revenue is up more than enough to compensate for the loss in page views. It's an old saw, but it's true: Print dollars become digital dimes.
- jeremymims 14y ago
  The reason I go with the simple analysis is because most people aren't aware that their newspaper costs quite a bit more than the subscription cost. I'd be really interested in hearing what's working for you and what isn't. Shoot me an e-mail and we can chat: j@ownlocal.com

SeanDav 14y ago

WSJ and FT caster to a more exclusive and professional audience who generally have to read their articles in order to stay current, therefore they can easily have a subscription only business model.

djahng 14y ago

One site, I think the LA Times, would show your the entire article but then redirect you to their pay page after a few seconds. I just turned off javascript and it solved that issue...