New York Times Considers $5 Monthly Web-Access Fee • Hacker News Board

Re: New York Times Considers $5 Monthly Web-Access Fee

#21

Post by aj » Fri, Jul 10, 2009, 11:08 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #19

chaosmachine wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can guess: No more links to NYTimes.

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.

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.

Re: New York Times Considers $5 Monthly Web-Access Fee

#22

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 10, 2009, 12:12 PM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #10

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 po…

[deleted]

Re: New York Times Considers $5 Monthly Web-Access Fee

#23

Post by chaosmachine » Fri, Jul 10, 2009, 6:06 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #19

chaosmachine wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can guess: No more links to NYTimes.

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.

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.

Re: New York Times Considers $5 Monthly Web-Access Fee

#24

Post by credo » Mon, Jul 13, 2009, 6:07 PM UTC

mtd wrote: post #17

jlangenauer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you can read Anderson's book "Free" online at: 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.)

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."

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.