(Slightly) Off-Topic Poll: Paying for The Times Online?
Over on the Silicon Alley Insider today, Henry Blodgett makes the case that The New York Times needs to start charging a subscription fee for full access to the newspaper’s extremely popular website. Given what a lifeblood of content it is for this blog (and most others), the answer is a no-brainer ‘yes’ for us,…
Over on the Silicon Alley Insider today, Henry Blodgett makes the case that The New York Times needs to start charging a subscription fee for full access to the newspaper’s extremely popular website. Given what a lifeblood of content it is for this blog (and most others), the answer is a no-brainer ‘yes’ for us, but we’re curious to see where readers come down on the issue.
I read the Times online all the time.
Yet, I vowed, and continue to vow, to never give that company one cent.
The reason is simple – two words, actually.
WILLIAM FUCKIN KRISTOL
OK, three.
There’s too much free content out there for it to work. Most people get news differently than they used to, they don’t spend blocks of continuous time consuming the news. The reality is that the unique value that the NYT brings to a shrinking audience won’t pay for itself, and people who get benefit out of the “free” content will quickly subsitute into something else if they charge for it. There’s an interesting article about the NYT website in NY Mag – it’s free http://nymag.com/news/features/all-new/53344/
This already failed once. With so many new possible mistakes, why make the same one again?
Moreover, bloggers rely on newspapers and wire services for much of their content. They generally provide commentary on the news, rather than original reporting. We need real investigative journalism to keep people honest.
They should charge a small fee. Content is worth it. Bloggers makes money out of it by taking part of the content and the traffic to their own site.
“bloggers can’t sit in the courts, local government centers and so on and report what goes on there.”
It’s more. Bloggers don’t have foreign bureaus covering developments in the far corners of the world. Bloggers don’t have the resources to maintain “beats” that are staffed for years by experienced professionals. Bloggers tend to specialize and as a result can’t offer the broad coverage found in newspapers. Most importantly, bloggers, for the most part, base their posts on topics covered in traditional media. If we lose traditional media, we (and the blogosphere) lose the original reporting on which we all rely.
Henry Blodgett isn’t saying anything the Sulzbergers don’t already know. If The Times could convince people to pay for complete online access, they would have done it years ago. As Peter18 pointed out, the Times (along with a number of other news and information sites) have tried to establish pay-for access and it simply hasn’t worked. Readers will forego the paper online if it costs money. Now that the paradigm has been established, it’s going to be very difficult to change the system. The Wall Street Journal is the only daily newspaper that has succesfully maintained a pay-for-online-access stance.
In any event, the Times had better figure something out, and quickly. In the immortal words of Michael Ray Richardson, “The ship be sinkin'”:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901/new-york-times
I’m surprised by how many people today think they deserve content for free. Blogging has had an enormous impact on the print industry, and it had indeed allowed people to access information immediately. However, ad revenue doesn’t always cover the cost of content creation. I’d miss the free site like hell, but I would understand why they were charging.
The New York Times is a rag, I lost count of how many times the paper printed outright lies. This is why its slowly going out of business. I want a paper I can rely on for the facts, not its ideaology. Save your money within the next 3-5 years the NY Times will be out of business, nobody can trust it any longer.