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

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

#41

Post by anarazel »

undreren wrote: post #19
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

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. :)

>> 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.

FWIW, I have a "cancel subscription" link in my profile.

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

#42

Post by mehrdadn »

dubrocks wrote: post #15
sigfubar wrote: post #4

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

Not as trivially-bypassed on mobile, I presume.

Open in incognito? (Not advocating bypassing, just responding to your comment.)

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

#43

Post by CamperBob2 »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #34
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

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

Interesting. How does it verify that you're a SF resident?

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

#44

Post by ehsankia »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

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…

I canceled mine last week exactly because of those dark patterns. They also show ads even if you have a subscription, which sounds very backward to me. I'd love to support them, but those practices don't belong in 2018.

EDIT: Oh, looks like the cancellation didn't go through and they charged me for one more month, sweet. I might just go to my bank and tell them to block the source. Or even better, I may have found a trick. You can switch your payment to Paypal, and then Paypal let's you block/cancel reccuring payment. Let's see if that works.

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

#45

Post by ehsankia »

sngz wrote: post #29

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

And after seeing how bullshit their unsubscribe flow is, I don't think I'll be joining back any time soon. As much as I want to support their work, these dark patterns are despicable.

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

#46

Post by cstrat »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

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…

Yup I subscribed, but unsubscribed after a couple weeks after I saw that. Pretty scummy way to handle un-subscriptions.

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

#47

Post by TangoTrotFox »

comex wrote: post #14
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

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]

Their total print circulation is 2.1 million. [1] I always discount digital head counts since they can be grossly inflated with complete plausible deniability. And even when done well, it's probably accurate to do things like count somebody clicking on a single clickbait headline and then immediately leaving as a 'monthly reader' which creates a sort of dissonance between what we think of as monthly reader and what it actually means.

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

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

#48

Post by jdoliner »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #34
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

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

Any idea how much NYTimes gets for this deal?

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

#49

Post by lkurusa »

glup wrote: post #25
mey wrote: post #8

As a paid sub, really don't like that they still attempt to blast you with ads.

Try https://www.nytimes.com/section/todayspaper , should be ad free for subscribers (it's a closer approximation to the actual print version)

I would also like to recommend https://app.nytimes.com/ , which is a different approach to the same content.

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

#50

Post by nemild »

glup wrote: post #25
mey wrote: post #8

As a paid sub, really don't like that they still attempt to blast you with ads.

Try https://www.nytimes.com/section/todayspaper , should be ad free for subscribers (it's a closer approximation to the actual print version)

The Today's Paper link is also a good way to scrape for data analysis (the API isn't great), such as this piece I did looking at their coverage over a decade:

The deaths that are most covered are a tiny fraction (

https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html

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