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The desperation of NYTimes

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Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#171

Post by senderista »

bandofthehawk wrote: post #165
epistasis wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in California, cancelled about five years ago, and they forced me to talk to a person who demanded a reason for my cancellation, and then argued with me about wanting to cancel. Do not subscribe to the NYTimes. Use your library card, if one must read it, and unfortunately as the undeserved "paper of record" one must often read it to be kept aware of what others are being fed. There's no baby here to throw out…

> their Ukraine coverage is basically Russia-lite, and extremely anti-Ukrainian This is very surprising to me, I thought they were kind of pro Ukraine biased. I asked an AI and it came back with this: > The New York Times' coverage of the war is overwhelmingly pro-Ukraine in its framing, tone, and attribution of responsibility, though critics argue this manifests as omission of context regarding NATO expansion and US…

Of course it is and always has been. However, since 2023 with the failure of the overhyped summer counteroffensive, the mainstream narrative has shifted in a slightly more realist direction, which infuriates a lot of people.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#172

Post by cwillu »

spelk wrote: post #115
epistasis wrote: post #3

NYTimes is predatory on subscriptions. Over my long lifetime I've subscribed twice, and regretted it both times with intensity. Any place that allows easy instantaneous subscription by a simple web form, but makes you call and talk to a person during limited business hours for cancellation , is a toxic place. I've been told they have stopped this predatory practice due to some newly passed laws or something, but they…

.I urge everyone reading to unsubscribe instantaneously from the NYTimes for their business practices. Do not do business with unethical companies. You are not wrong for thinking that, but I encourage people to consider that generally the business and editorial areas are largely independent of each other because of the value of editorial independence in case they think that the lack of ethics applies to their journal…

Have they issued a retraction for the biologically impossible “dog rape” claims yet?

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#173

Post by senderista »

da02 wrote: post #36

I just gave up on reading respectable news outlet like NY Times. I decided to just get it from "fringe" Youtube channels: Danny Haiphong, Dialogue Works with Nima, The Jimmy Dore Show. Recently, former CIA analyst, Larry Johnson, worked with Pepe Escobar and Zulfiqar Ali to vet a source saying Iran has 1 or 2 nuclear weapons. Let's see how long it will take the NY Times to avoid/deny/confirm that story.

Balancing your news consumption among right and left fringe sources isn't a great way to find the truth "in the middle".

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#174

Post by acomjean »

I love the bottom pop up which says “It’s better with the App”

The options are “yes” or “Not now”

No option for the “No thanks, please don’t bother me about this again for at least 30 days” that I want

The times will repeat this about ever 3 articles, which is really fn annoying.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#175

Post by WarmWash »

imoreno wrote: post #106
WarmWash wrote: post #82

They are desperate, all of media is desperate. People want news online, and they do not want to see ads, they do not want to pay a subscription. So if you are media company and want to stay afloat, you need to appeal to the people who are either willing (or don't know otherwise) to load ads or willing to pay a subscription. In both cases, it's in large part people on the fringe. Not your average person.

>they do not want to pay a subscription. This is wrong in 2026. Lots of people want to pay. See: TFA What they don't want is and _still_ see ads, get hassled by needy marketing emails. See: TFA If you're saying "we're gonna show you ads and datamine you because you're getting it free", then when I do pay, you have to take that stuff out. Try to have your cake and eat it too = sub canceled, adblock on, ad nauseam enab…

Conversion rates from user to subscriber are on the order of 5%. 5 people paying for every 100 people consuming is not sustainable.

It's also true that most people are unwilling to fully "buy out" their ad value. For instance Meta makes about $27/mo/user from instagram ads.

Would you pay $27/mo for instagram? Maybe people would pay $5, but Meta will still close the gap with $22 of ads...

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#176

Post by HDThoreaun »

queenkjuul wrote: post #153
dieselgate wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respect your opinion but am grateful for and find tremendous value in my NYT subscription. I share it with my SO and read their articles constantly. Prior to getting a subscription I was a "turn js off" kind of person - which is fine I suppose and still do it for other sites. I do not maintain any streaming or other subscriptions outside of Deezer (and a Garmin GPS FWIW). I would like a Bloomberg subscription but t…

I won't even read the NYT lol let alone pay for it. Iraq war: not even once.

If you only read news from companies against the iraq war your options consist pretty much solely of companies that didnt exist on 9/11.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#177

Post by evanelias »

ciwchris wrote: post #161

I had the same experience and feeling. I've also experienced this elsewhere. TIAA was essentially sending me marketing emails I couldn't unsubscribe from. My financial manager with sympathetic and communicated my frustration to the business, but I don't believe it lead to any changes. As a result I have marked my emails from TIAA as spam, which now means email is not a reliable source of information from them, and so…

Same here, I was just about to comment about this exact problem with TIAA specifically, after receiving yet another marketing spam email from them today.

For a while they all had a footer like "This service communication provides information about your plan benefits to help you make informed decisions. It is sent as part of our plan services and is not subject to communication preferences. Thank you." But today's spam didn't even bother with that song and dance.

It's infuriating.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#178

Post by mynameisvlad »

dangus wrote: post #48

Not sure what the author is bitching about. They’re a one-time series of email messages over 14 days. They are transactional emails. Maybe the author doesn’t agree with that but they’re welcome to take NYT to court over it. Is their email provider charging you per email or something?

What is transactional about a daily message for 14 days? Especially when you haven't made a transaction to trigger said message?

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#179

Post by ethagnawl »

wholinator2 wrote: post #99
ethagnawl wrote: post #54

The UX anti-pattern of theirs which really grinds my gears is the "Continue reading in the app -- it's better." modal which appears when reading articles on the web. There does not seem to be a way to permanently opt out of it. I'm sure I could use GreaseMonkey or whatever to dismiss it for me but I mostly read articles on my phone, which makes any of that harder. The larger point, though, is that I shouldn't have to…

You probably know but firefox on mobile let's you use extensions, for which i have ublock origin installed and regularly use it to block modals and things that my filter lists (every single one activated) don't cover already.

I've actually been meaning to move back to Firefox, so this is encouraging. I didn't realize you could do that sort of thing with uBlock, though? I thought it was just for blocking ads, etc.

Re: The desperation of NYTimes

#180

Post by neilv »

Ongoing sketchy behavior by NYT's business side seems to be one of the problems eroding the NYT's reputation in recent years.

The publisher may be preserving the family business during difficult times, but... in addition to the money and the upper-crust status that business survival confers, doesn't the publisher and everyone else involved with the NYT want to serve society, and to be known for serving society?

Not to be known for NYT's various sketchy subscription practices?

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