4 ms·

New York Times Considers $5 Monthly Web-Access Fee

6 points by aj 17y ago

aj 17y ago
Also considering that NYTimes is a major news contributor to Twitter, Techmeme and our own HN, I wonder if this is implemented, what the impact will be!
- chaosmachine 17y ago
  I can guess: No more links to NYTimes.
  - patio11 17y ago
    Let's be realistic. The NYTimes will still get plenty of links. The first comment on all of them (heavily upvoted) will be "email: bugmenot@mailinator.com password: bugmenot". The second comment will be "Why do people keep posting links to the NYT? Paywalls sucksorz, yo." And half of the people upvoting these two comments will think that their startup will succeed on ad revenue where the NYT failed.
    - aj 17y ago
      I don't think so. IIRC, bugmenot does not allow paid subscription details to be posted to it.. But I still agree that NYTimes will still receive a fair bit of links but also believe it will decrease to some extent.
    - chaosmachine 17y ago
      You can bet paid accounts will be tied to credit cards, and no one will be sharing. More likely, people would just cut and paste the article. The main problem is, nobody will find the article in the first place, because no one will subscribe to read it.
satyajit 17y ago
Didn't they read/listen the "Free" book by 'Chris Anderson' (posted here on HN few days back)? Who will pay to read the news? Who will pay to read the blogs? I feel sorry for the news site and the business in general, but I am afraid this strategy isn't going to work. Will be happy to be proven wrong! In fact donation may work even better!
ramidarigaz 17y ago
I'm really sorry to say that, even though I really like the quality of NYT articles, I won't pay nearly that much. Maybe $0.99/month, but I can't justify the $5/month. It's slightly sad though; all of their articles that are posted on HN are quality material. I hope they realize.
- netsp 17y ago
  A $0.99/month is almost as much of a problem. Most times that I hit NYT it's because of a link here or on a blog or someone emails it to me. That amounts to probably 1-2 per week. That disappears with a paywall.
quoderat 17y ago
No way in the world I will pay for this. Nothing that special in the NYT to me. They are already close to going out of business as is. This won't make it any better.
- quoderat 17y ago
  Ah, apparently no one bothered to check the actual facts before downvoting: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003920658 http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display...
anigbrowl 17y ago
I'm bored with the endless speculation. I wish they'd go ahead and actually try it instead of sending up endless trial balloons. If it doesn't work they can try something else after 3 months.
Adam503 17y ago
Please do. Few will pay, and the NYT will make itself even less prestigious.
gojomo 17y ago
They tried something similar with TimesSelect and then pulled back; their columnists were at a disadvantage in online conversations. They should first try more aggressive interstitials -- or even a 12-24 hour embargo of fresh news -- both of which only paid subscribers can skip. Then they get the inlinks, and people in a race to link/comment are most likely to pay. (And the idea that they want print subscribers to pony up $2.50/month for online access? Petty. You'd think they could throw it in for the $300-$400/year print delivery costs!)
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
credo 17y ago
I think that it is a good idea/experiment to start charging web-users for news content (and I'm surprised that all six previous comments criticized the move) As for Anderson's "Free" book mentioned in a previous comment, that book isn't free and I suspect that Anderson won't make the content free for downloads. Ultimately, we live in an age where people pay $4 for latte and iPhone users pay money for cheap-to-develop, crude entertainment apps. Sending reporters to Afghanisthan, covering the war in Iraq, tracking child abuse in Congo or investigating political corruption in Washington is an expensive proposition. So ...to the people who like the news/analysis, but won't pay for it, please consider whether the NYT (or your other favorite newspaper) is really worth less than the other things that you spend money on.
- jlangenauer 17y ago
  Actually, you can read Anderson's book "Free" online at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/17135767/FREE-full-book-by-Chris-Anderson http://www.scribd.com/doc/17135767/FREE-full-book-by-Chris-A... (He explicitly mentions in the book that he's giving it away for free, so this is legit.)
  - credo 17y ago
    Thanks for the info. I should have checked to see if the book was available for free. I'll take a look at the book. My point about the relative value of news/analysis content vs latte etc. still applies
  - mtd 17y ago
    Free seems to be a relative term. From Germany I get the following: "Sorry, this content is geographically restricted Due to our agreements with our publishing partners, the document you requested is only available to users located in the United States."
    - credo 17y ago
      I tried this out (in the US). Downloads don't work, printing returns an error "Printing has been disabled" and reading it with scribd is pretty inconvenient. I guess the point is that you can read it for free if you're willing to put up with a lot of inconvenience.
mojonixon 17y ago
Maybe they should get rid of the adless login/register interstitial first (read: stop bouncing readers before they serve an ad). I don't know if they can make it with just ads, but with the way they're doing it they are doomed to failure. A while back there was a post about how plentyoffish had ads on nytimes.com. So plentyoffish is stickier/has higher cpms than nytimes? Pathetic. A lot of their articles they don't even provide a comments section (easy page view doubler). Their UI looks like it was designed by a 19th century type-setter. I know they're trying not to stray from the brand, but the brand is good writing, not ancient design.
kalvin 17y ago
I guess I'm in the minority here, but I read the NYT every day and I'd gladly pay $5/month for it.
hvs 17y ago
The problem with charging for news sites is less about how many of your regular readers are willing to pay for the content and is more about how people interact with your site. The majority of news articles on the web are accessed through linking from other sites (Google, blogs, etc). If you put up pay wall, you instantly lose most of that traffic. WSJ works around this by giving access to people coming from outside links, but I'm not sure how well that model works: http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/03/21/wsj/ http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/03/21/wsj/
maurycy 17y ago
C'mon, people. $5 is less than one visit to McDonalds. And by subscribing with such little amount of money, you support the Internet environment, by increasing number of people paying for digital goods.

6 points by aj 17y ago

aj 17y ago

Also considering that NYTimes is a major news contributor to Twitter, Techmeme and our own HN, I wonder if this is implemented, what the impact will be!

chaosmachine 17y ago
I can guess: No more links to NYTimes.
- patio11 17y ago
  Let's be realistic. The NYTimes will still get plenty of links. The first comment on all of them (heavily upvoted) will be "email: bugmenot@mailinator.com password: bugmenot". The second comment will be "Why do people keep posting links to the NYT? Paywalls sucksorz, yo." And half of the people upvoting these two comments will think that their startup will succeed on ad revenue where the NYT failed.
  - aj 17y ago
    I don't think so. IIRC, bugmenot does not allow paid subscription details to be posted to it.. But I still agree that NYTimes will still receive a fair bit of links but also believe it will decrease to some extent.
  - chaosmachine 17y ago
    You can bet paid accounts will be tied to credit cards, and no one will be sharing. More likely, people would just cut and paste the article. The main problem is, nobody will find the article in the first place, because no one will subscribe to read it.

satyajit 17y ago

Didn't they read/listen the "Free" book by 'Chris Anderson' (posted here on HN few days back)? Who will pay to read the news? Who will pay to read the blogs? I feel sorry for the news site and the business in general, but I am afraid this strategy isn't going to work. Will be happy to be proven wrong! In fact donation may work even better!

ramidarigaz 17y ago

I'm really sorry to say that, even though I really like the quality of NYT articles, I won't pay nearly that much. Maybe $0.99/month, but I can't justify the $5/month. It's slightly sad though; all of their articles that are posted on HN are quality material. I hope they realize.

netsp 17y ago
A $0.99/month is almost as much of a problem. Most times that I hit NYT it's because of a link here or on a blog or someone emails it to me. That amounts to probably 1-2 per week. That disappears with a paywall.

quoderat 17y ago

No way in the world I will pay for this. Nothing that special in the NYT to me. They are already close to going out of business as is. This won't make it any better.

quoderat 17y ago
Ah, apparently no one bothered to check the actual facts before downvoting: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003920658 http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display...

anigbrowl 17y ago

I'm bored with the endless speculation. I wish they'd go ahead and actually try it instead of sending up endless trial balloons. If it doesn't work they can try something else after 3 months.

Adam503 17y ago

Please do. Few will pay, and the NYT will make itself even less prestigious.

gojomo 17y ago

They tried something similar with TimesSelect and then pulled back; their columnists were at a disadvantage in online conversations. They should first try more aggressive interstitials -- or even a 12-24 hour embargo of fresh news -- both of which only paid subscribers can skip. Then they get the inlinks, and people in a race to link/comment are most likely to pay. (And the idea that they want print subscribers to pony up $2.50/month for online access? Petty. You'd think they could throw it in for the $300-$400/year print delivery costs!)

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

credo 17y ago

I think that it is a good idea/experiment to start charging web-users for news content (and I'm surprised that all six previous comments criticized the move) As for Anderson's "Free" book mentioned in a previous comment, that book isn't free and I suspect that Anderson won't make the content free for downloads. Ultimately, we live in an age where people pay $4 for latte and iPhone users pay money for cheap-to-develop, crude entertainment apps. Sending reporters to Afghanisthan, covering the war in Iraq, tracking child abuse in Congo or investigating political corruption in Washington is an expensive proposition. So ...to the people who like the news/analysis, but won't pay for it, please consider whether the NYT (or your other favorite newspaper) is really worth less than the other things that you spend money on.

jlangenauer 17y ago
Actually, you can read Anderson's book "Free" online at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/17135767/FREE-full-book-by-Chris-Anderson http://www.scribd.com/doc/17135767/FREE-full-book-by-Chris-A... (He explicitly mentions in the book that he's giving it away for free, so this is legit.)
- credo 17y ago
  Thanks for the info. I should have checked to see if the book was available for free. I'll take a look at the book. My point about the relative value of news/analysis content vs latte etc. still applies
- mtd 17y ago
  Free seems to be a relative term. From Germany I get the following: "Sorry, this content is geographically restricted Due to our agreements with our publishing partners, the document you requested is only available to users located in the United States."
  - credo 17y ago
    I tried this out (in the US). Downloads don't work, printing returns an error "Printing has been disabled" and reading it with scribd is pretty inconvenient. I guess the point is that you can read it for free if you're willing to put up with a lot of inconvenience.

mojonixon 17y ago

Maybe they should get rid of the adless login/register interstitial first (read: stop bouncing readers before they serve an ad). I don't know if they can make it with just ads, but with the way they're doing it they are doomed to failure. A while back there was a post about how plentyoffish had ads on nytimes.com. So plentyoffish is stickier/has higher cpms than nytimes? Pathetic. A lot of their articles they don't even provide a comments section (easy page view doubler). Their UI looks like it was designed by a 19th century type-setter. I know they're trying not to stray from the brand, but the brand is good writing, not ancient design.

kalvin 17y ago

I guess I'm in the minority here, but I read the NYT every day and I'd gladly pay $5/month for it.

hvs 17y ago

The problem with charging for news sites is less about how many of your regular readers are willing to pay for the content and is more about how people interact with your site. The majority of news articles on the web are accessed through linking from other sites (Google, blogs, etc). If you put up pay wall, you instantly lose most of that traffic. WSJ works around this by giving access to people coming from outside links, but I'm not sure how well that model works: http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/03/21/wsj/ http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/03/21/wsj/

maurycy 17y ago

C'mon, people. $5 is less than one visit to McDonalds. And by subscribing with such little amount of money, you support the Internet environment, by increasing number of people paying for digital goods.