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Ukraine Tracks Protesters Through Cellphones

nytimes.com

1–10 of 34 posts

Re: Ukraine Tracks Protesters Through Cellphones

#2
I couldn't image getting this text: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”

Puts a bit more focus on the reach available to anyone via my reliance on tech to "always be reachable". Good when my friends/family/customers need me but horrible when in the hands of bad actors.

Re: Ukraine Tracks Protesters Through Cellphones

#5

The website says that I have already read my 10 free articles this month and need to pay money to read this one. This has been happening a lot with HackerNews links for me. Do I have a virus, or are you supposed to be rich to post here?

The New York Times is professional journalism. You don't need to be rich to afford $3.75/week. This is about $200/yr, on the order of the price of a print subscription. Working class families have been reading newspapers for decades.

Occasionally we find that professional, full-time newsrooms produce better content than the blogosphere. Producing that content took a staff of educated, full-time professionals with families and mortgages. I don't find it particularly offensive that people who regularly consume their output are expected to help fund their salaries so they can keep producing.

Re: Ukraine Tracks Protesters Through Cellphones

#6

The website says that I have already read my 10 free articles this month and need to pay money to read this one. This has been happening a lot with HackerNews links for me. Do I have a virus, or are you supposed to be rich to post here?

The New York Times is professional journalism. You don't need to be rich to afford $3.75/week. This is about $200/yr, on the order of the price of a print subscription. Working class families have been reading newspapers for decades. Occasionally we find that professional, full-time newsrooms produce better content than the blogosphere. Producing that content took a staff of educated, full-time professionals with fam…

Of course, because digital edition has distribution costs just like printed editions.

Re: Ukraine Tracks Protesters Through Cellphones

#7

The website says that I have already read my 10 free articles this month and need to pay money to read this one. This has been happening a lot with HackerNews links for me. Do I have a virus, or are you supposed to be rich to post here?

Sometimes it works in private window. But I agree, this is ridiculous, I cannot access most of the links to nytimes either, especially blog ones, even in private window.

Re: Ukraine Tracks Protesters Through Cellphones

#8
post #7

The website says that I have already read my 10 free articles this month and need to pay money to read this one. This has been happening a lot with HackerNews links for me. Do I have a virus, or are you supposed to be rich to post here?

Sometimes it works in private window. But I agree, this is ridiculous, I cannot access most of the links to nytimes either, especially blog ones, even in private window.

1) You can get still get around it by Googling "NYTimes" + [article title] and then opening the link in a private browse window.

2) I don't think it's "ridiculous" for the NYT to want to monetize their work. After all, their employees don't work for free.

Re: Ukraine Tracks Protesters Through Cellphones

#9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The New York Times is professional journalism. You don't need to be rich to afford $3.75/week. This is about $200/yr, on the order of the price of a print subscription. Working class families have been reading newspapers for decades. Occasionally we find that professional, full-time newsrooms produce better content than the blogosphere. Producing that content took a staff of educated, full-time professionals with fam…

Of course, because digital edition has distribution costs just like printed editions.

Does the printed edition have videos? Real time updates? RSS?

Re: Ukraine Tracks Protesters Through Cellphones

#10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The New York Times is professional journalism. You don't need to be rich to afford $3.75/week. This is about $200/yr, on the order of the price of a print subscription. Working class families have been reading newspapers for decades. Occasionally we find that professional, full-time newsrooms produce better content than the blogosphere. Producing that content took a staff of educated, full-time professionals with fam…

Of course, because digital edition has distribution costs just like printed editions.

If you get the same news, and you were happy with what you were paying to get high quality news (you're not buying a sheet of paper, you're buying the news), then what's the problem?

Why should moving to digital mean reducing the price versus print?

Perhaps the NY Times should keep the margin difference as profit, helping to restore their financial condition from the recent disaster it has been, so they don't have to go crawling to Carlos Slim again. Building up their financial position would assist in their independence as a news source.

Perhaps the NY Times should put that margin back into the business, and create more / better content, thus more than justifying the price staying the same.

Either way, the argument in favor of reducing prices just because of cheaper distribution, is not inherently a good one.

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