First, how does one differentiate the value add between a smart phone and a tablet enough to charge the sum of those parts, not an incremental addition?
Two, if you go with the cheapest print option (weekday) at $14.80 a month delivered to your house, you get all access across all devices.
As one of my friends noted: how could they not look around and be inspired by digital companies that have millions of users on a few dollars a month on drip....but no. They still think of themselves as a print provider. Name another service we pay $15 bucks a month to access from our smartphone.
Wow, the pricing seems incredibly steep. I'm used to thinking twice before subscribing to magazines, since $12/year per magazine adds up. But they are talking about $8+ a week - wow. Good luck getting enough people to pay that. And before someone starts talking about lattes, I don't buy lattes, for the same reason. And I have a really good income.
I can't find any mention of whether advertisements will be shown to paying customers. The "no-pay-but-view-ads" vs. "pay-with-no-ads" model has been a mainstay of most freemium websites, but NYTimes looks like it's going to keep ads no matter if you pay or not.
At $3.75 to $8.75 per week, I'd expect ads to be gone. Not that they need to be. It's just what I've come to expect.
The news publication industry is changing (along with the rest of the publication industry). I like the direction NYTimes is going in -- "For quality content, you should expect to pay real money" -- but the model has so much bad baggage attached to it that it seems doomed to failure, with The Times (London) being the most recent NYTimes-scale example.
Nice. For only $15 dollars a month I can get the latest updates on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and the virtues of warrantless wiretapping. What a bargain.
I find it strange that no one seems to be talking about what his does to NYT's google-juice/clout in the link economy. NYT peddles influence by being widely read/the paper of record, but doesn't putting up a paywall directly mitigate that? Ad-supported model seems to (for the most part) complement that; a paywall opposes it.
Really depends on Google's policies. I'm imagine that Google was consulted and gave their approval for this setup. Perhaps people coming from a Google link will be automatically allowed entry, in the same way as the expert-sexchange site works.
They just seem to be following their print model for some sort of mental connection in buyers used to paying for weekly newspaper subscriptions. It's confusing to me to figure out as someone who prefers monthly installments (UK rent is figured per week as well, then multiplied by 52, then divided by 12 for the monthly rent… so convoluted), but it's not totally bizarre for NYTimes to bill this way.
Seems fair to me. Eventually, freeloaders (myself included) will be relegated to reading al-Jazeera, BBC News, NPR, and some random combination of AP/Reuters/UPI via Google News.
BBC is paid for by the British taxpayer. Al-Jazeera is funded by the Qatari royal family. Reuters news is a loss-leader for their financial services business.
News is expensive! Don't be fooled that because commentary on news that others have gathered (e.g. HuffPo) is essentially free that it doesn't cost real money to send a reporter to some faraway place for 6 months to do some investigative journalism, then fact-check it and write it up...
The real issue here is the the Times is just trying to find a way to pay for their nice big NYC downtown tower. That and other typical newspaper-related overhead, which used to be well within their operating budget, before the internet.
The newspaper industry is the dying industry of our time, and desperation set in a while ago. The NYT took a bit longer to appear desperate because of it's generally more loyal readerbase and large coffers, while most small dailies & weeklies have either drastically reduced overhead or completely packed up already.
And many newspapers still turn a reasonable profit, it's just that the major metros can't earn enough to pay off all the debts left over from the major consolidations at the start of the decade. One reference to that effect: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-aaron/consolidation-is-n...
Although I think this long overdue, and I support the move in this direction, NYT is makings a big mistake by charging too much. The price should be $5.95 per month (perhaps a discount for seniors and students).
The problem is that they can't charge that little compared to the paper delivery. Indeed, they must cut the paper cord and think digitally, small fee will multiply exponentially, worldwide.
Wondering what this means for the constellation of links to old NYT pieces now embedded in blogs around the world.
Assuming that following one would count against the 20 free articles per month quota they've established, and that they're not planning an apocalyptic sweep of millions of inbound links.
The most interesting sentence is: "For some search engines, users will have a daily limit of free links to Times articles." The question being which search engines is The Times cutting deals with...
I hope this works; if it does, it will be the best thing which has happened to news in a long time. Companies produce product which is beneficial to their customers; if those customers are large corporations buying advertisement, their product will be beneficial to large corporations. If their customers are you and me, spending $8 a week for news, they will produce product beneficial to us.
[+] [-] thushan|15 years ago|reply
NYTimes.com + Smartphone = $15/month NYTimes.com + Tablet = $20/month NYTimes.com + Tablet + Smartphone = $35/month (WHAT?)
First, how does one differentiate the value add between a smart phone and a tablet enough to charge the sum of those parts, not an incremental addition?
Two, if you go with the cheapest print option (weekday) at $14.80 a month delivered to your house, you get all access across all devices. As one of my friends noted: how could they not look around and be inspired by digital companies that have millions of users on a few dollars a month on drip....but no. They still think of themselves as a print provider. Name another service we pay $15 bucks a month to access from our smartphone.
This seems like a print centric decision.
[+] [-] neild|15 years ago|reply
Which is, of course, still cheaper than the web+smartphone+tablet plan.
[+] [-] natch|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jellicle|15 years ago|reply
So: dead trees delivered to my door, six times per week: $1.50/week.
Bits which I have to go fetch myself, paying rather usurious bandwidth rates: $8.75/week.
Hmmmm. Something seems off here.
[+] [-] nanoanderson|15 years ago|reply
At $3.75 to $8.75 per week, I'd expect ads to be gone. Not that they need to be. It's just what I've come to expect.
The news publication industry is changing (along with the rest of the publication industry). I like the direction NYTimes is going in -- "For quality content, you should expect to pay real money" -- but the model has so much bad baggage attached to it that it seems doomed to failure, with The Times (London) being the most recent NYTimes-scale example.
[+] [-] Alex3917|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|15 years ago|reply
It isn't free news that killed the newspapers.
It is their own so called news, which are mostly put there by pr companies or else are outright lies by politicians.
[+] [-] cschmidt|15 years ago|reply
Daily Delivery (7 Days), $29.60 per four weeks
The Weekender (Friday–Sunday), $20.80 per four weeks
Sunday Only, $15 per four weeks
Weekday (Monday–Friday), $14.80 per four weeks
All Digital Access, $35 every four weeks
NYtimes.com + Tablet App, $20 every four weeks
NYtimes.com + Smartphone App, $15 every four weeks
So getting a weekday subscription at $14.80 gets you the $35 digital deal. I'm sure they won't mind if this drives some extra dead tree subscriptions.
[+] [-] joebadmo|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gaius|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jellicle|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brown9-2|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nanoanderson|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Helianthus16|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stuartjmoore|15 years ago|reply
.com, smartphone, and tablet should be less than the first two combined. Incentivise people to pay more by making it seem like less.
[+] [-] muhfuhkuh|15 years ago|reply
Or, you know, some of us may pay.
[+] [-] gaius|15 years ago|reply
News is expensive! Don't be fooled that because commentary on news that others have gathered (e.g. HuffPo) is essentially free that it doesn't cost real money to send a reporter to some faraway place for 6 months to do some investigative journalism, then fact-check it and write it up...
[+] [-] nicksergeant|15 years ago|reply
The newspaper industry is the dying industry of our time, and desperation set in a while ago. The NYT took a bit longer to appear desperate because of it's generally more loyal readerbase and large coffers, while most small dailies & weeklies have either drastically reduced overhead or completely packed up already.
[+] [-] drewda|15 years ago|reply
And many newspapers still turn a reasonable profit, it's just that the major metros can't earn enough to pay off all the debts left over from the major consolidations at the start of the decade. One reference to that effect: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-aaron/consolidation-is-n...
[+] [-] pointillistic|15 years ago|reply
The problem is that they can't charge that little compared to the paper delivery. Indeed, they must cut the paper cord and think digitally, small fee will multiply exponentially, worldwide.
[+] [-] alexqgb|15 years ago|reply
Assuming that following one would count against the 20 free articles per month quota they've established, and that they're not planning an apocalyptic sweep of millions of inbound links.
[+] [-] drewda|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drallison|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joebananas|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RandyHelzerman|15 years ago|reply