NYTimes to start charging for access to their website.
1–10 of 69 posts
Re: NYTimes to start charging for access to their website.
#2It's really quite surprising that it's taken this long to reach the decision, and it will take another year before people start paying anything.
No mention of what will happen to the currently free (and super) iPhone/iTouch app.
Re: NYTimes to start charging for access to their website.
#3>>"There’s a lot of technical work that we need to do over the next year to get this right," said Martin A. Nisenholtz.
Well, duh. For one, is this cookie-based tracking? I already know how to fix that. Is it sign in tracking? I predict a surge in account sign-ups. Is it IP-based tracking? Say bye to all your AOL users and those behind proxies. Will they force users to install a browser plugin or and ActiveX control or use a FLASH plugin or Silverlight or whatnot? Yeah, that will work for sure.
So, which magical solution do they think they can come up with?
Anyone else thinking this is going to fail quietly in the next few months?
Re: NYTimes to start charging for access to their website.
#4"Starting in early 2011..." that's an age away in internet time. Things could have changed considerably by then.
Re: NYTimes to start charging for access to their website.
#5>>"There’s a lot of technical work that we need to do over the next year to get this right," said Martin A. Nisenholtz. Well, duh. For one, is this cookie-based tracking? I already know how to fix that. Is it sign in tracking? I predict a surge in account sign-ups. Is it IP-based tracking? Say bye to all your AOL users and those behind proxies. Will they force users to install a browser plugin or and ActiveX control…
Although you may be able to bypass their protection, even if it's a simple cookie authentication, the whole operation will probably not be a failure. Presumably most people they are targeting, who might be willing to pay for a subscription, aren't tech-savvy enough and lack the motivation to get around it.
Re: NYTimes to start charging for access to their website.
#6>>"There’s a lot of technical work that we need to do over the next year to get this right," said Martin A. Nisenholtz. Well, duh. For one, is this cookie-based tracking? I already know how to fix that. Is it sign in tracking? I predict a surge in account sign-ups. Is it IP-based tracking? Say bye to all your AOL users and those behind proxies. Will they force users to install a browser plugin or and ActiveX control…
Are you somehow implying that a pay-wall can't be built? Porn sites seem to have figured it out quite a while ago so I don't see how NYTimes would be any different.
Of course they aren't going to be able to stop people copy/pasting articles to a friend but that generally isn't a problem.
Even if their pay-wall is only 99% effective and a small amount of smart techies manage to get around it for free it really isn't that big of an issue since people that determined to get the content for free never would've paid for it anyway.
Re: NYTimes to start charging for access to their website.
#7"Starting in early 2011..." that's an age away in internet time. Things could have changed considerably by then.
It's just one year...the Internet in early 2009 wasn't all that much different from now. I frequent the same websites I did back then, personally.
Re: NYTimes to start charging for access to their website.
#8>>"There’s a lot of technical work that we need to do over the next year to get this right," said Martin A. Nisenholtz. Well, duh. For one, is this cookie-based tracking? I already know how to fix that. Is it sign in tracking? I predict a surge in account sign-ups. Is it IP-based tracking? Say bye to all your AOL users and those behind proxies. Will they force users to install a browser plugin or and ActiveX control…
Are you somehow implying that a pay-wall can't be built? Porn sites seem to have figured it out quite a while ago so I don't see how NYTimes would be any different. Of course they aren't going to be able to stop people copy/pasting articles to a friend but that generally isn't a problem. Even if their pay-wall is only 99% effective and a small amount of smart techies manage to get around it for free it really isn't t…
I'm not saying anything a paywall: if it is "pay for everything", then you're right, it can be built very effectively. What they're saying is that they want to give free capped usage for users, and I'm thinking that whatever mechanism they think of can probably be circumvented easily.
Re: NYTimes to start charging for access to their website.
#9It's really quite surprising that it's taken this long to reach the decision, and it will take another year before people start paying anything. No mention of what will happen to the currently free (and super) iPhone/iTouch app.
> No mention of what will happen to the currently free (and super) iPhone/iTouch app.
I assume it will sadly turn into the WSJ app (few free articles, majority subscriber-only).
Of course, I can see Steve Jobs and Apple working a deal with the NYTimes to bundle a free 1-yr subscription for their iSlate owners.
Re: NYTimes to start charging for access to their website.
#10The NYT used to have a pay model. I paid them something like $8/mo. I didn't really use what I got over the free side of the site, but I wanted to support their journalism. After a few months I got an email that they would no longer be billing me.