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New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

nytimes.com

31–40 of 360 posts

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#31
post #4

Why would anyone subscribe to NYT when the content is readily available online behind a trivially bypassed paywall?

I used to do that then one day I read that there were layoffs to cut costs, I subscribed that very day. If you can afford to pay and you consume the service then $9 per month is not a lot.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#32

Good for them! But is it good for us? I don't know how I feel about news organizations (liberal or conservative) profiting from the Donald Trump era.

Well... the other option is that they dont profit, lose money, and close shop. Sooo.... Profit is good.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#33
post #29

i would pay for their subscription if they didnt blast me with ads even after paying.

not only do they advertise to you after you pay, if you are running adblock they attempt to guilt you into disabling it.

it's especially galling because the washington post costs me $27/year and doesn't bug me to disable my adblocker, and nytimes is $12/mo plus a guilt trip about "supporting journalism".

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#34

It's surprising to see how small they are. Only 3.8 million subscribers, and you have to imagine that some percentage of that barely reads their content. I wonder if there's public numbers estimating how many people in total read the New York Times, and how it compares to emerging forms of media and entertainment like YouTube. One criticism of New York Times that I've read online is that they won't allow you to cance…

If you live in San Francisco, you can access the NYT app without paying for a subscription, as your public library system already has a deal with NYT.

It's a slight hassle as you need to go to a web site to get a code every 3 days, but it's probably preferable for those who don't read it every day: https://sfpl.libanswers.com/friendly.php?slug=faq/166904

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#35
post #14

It's surprising to see how small they are. Only 3.8 million subscribers, and you have to imagine that some percentage of that barely reads their content. I wonder if there's public numbers estimating how many people in total read the New York Times, and how it compares to emerging forms of media and entertainment like YouTube. One criticism of New York Times that I've read online is that they won't allow you to cance…

They apparently have no fewer than 130 million monthly readers, though, according to a press release from last year: https://www.nytco.com/year-of-audience/ I̶ ̶g̶u̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶b̶u̶y̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶s̶p̶a̶p̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶d̶i̶v̶i̶d̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶.̶ [edit: that number isn't for physical newspapers, see replies]

My mom delivers papers for the New York Times. The pay is garbage but she is old and getting Social Security. She likes to drive around and people-watch. She is also on the route that mostly delivers to Starbucks, Safeway, the airport, 7/11, and Albertsons. It is the best route since you just drop 20 papers on the doorstep of a Starbucks.

She delivers about 500 papers a night. And she is just one of the 20+ drivers in our city of 180K people.

So people do still buy them.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#36
post #4

Why would anyone subscribe to NYT when the content is readily available online behind a trivially bypassed paywall?

I like their app - especially that I can just do a refresh and then offline view, which makes plane trips when I don't want to pay for wifi much more pleasant. They're also relatively sparse with their breaking news push notifications, so for the most part I don't feel like I need to "worry check" other news sites - if its of decent importance I'll get a push.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#37

It's surprising to see how small they are. Only 3.8 million subscribers, and you have to imagine that some percentage of that barely reads their content. I wonder if there's public numbers estimating how many people in total read the New York Times, and how it compares to emerging forms of media and entertainment like YouTube. One criticism of New York Times that I've read online is that they won't allow you to cance…

> One criticism of New York Times that I've read online is that they won't allow you to cancel your digital subscription through their website. They force you to call them. I'm not sure if that has changed recently, but that's a pretty questionable dark pattern. This is illegal in Europe. By law, it has to be at least as easy to cancel subscriptions, as it is to buy them. I love Europe. :)

I recently tried to cancel my mcfit gym membership in Germany which was much more difficult than signing up. In this case you actually had to mail them a letter by post to cancel, where signing up was done on-site in 10minutes. Maybe you are referring to online subscriptions?

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#38

It's surprising to see how small they are. Only 3.8 million subscribers, and you have to imagine that some percentage of that barely reads their content. I wonder if there's public numbers estimating how many people in total read the New York Times, and how it compares to emerging forms of media and entertainment like YouTube. One criticism of New York Times that I've read online is that they won't allow you to cance…

They have a print circulation of 2.1 million. [1] For comparison PewDiePie has 65 million subscribers on YouTube with his most popular video in the past couple of weeks hitting 12 million views, with an average of around 4 million.

I think this is why the media, in general and including the NYT, has become more partisan and more emotional. It's being used as a consumer retention mechanic. Impartial news done well is informative but not necessarily entertaining, which means it's probably not sustainable in the current zeitgeist of America.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_by_circulat...

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