NY Times Firewall

[lsanderson]

The Time's firewall goes up on Monday. I ustta get the paper edition, and the last time they firewalled their editorial and op-ed writers, I had access. I obviously steal borrow and link to a lot of their articles. Because I'm cheap On principles, I don't want to pay. OTOH, there's going to be severe withdrawal going on.

Comments

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

At first glance, I thought this post was called "NY Times Farewell." And I knew right away what you were talking about, even before I looked again.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Have you been following the news about the problems with the paywall, that the NYTimes reportedly paid $40-50 million to design and code? It can be surmounted with four lines of Javascript. As the Nieman Journalism Lab article says, "It barely even qualifies as a hack."

Beside that, the paywall is porous by design. The NYTimes wants the ad revenue and Google that comes with social network traffic.

I have mixed feelings. I want journalism to survive. For that to happen, there has to be money in it. In some ways I admire NYT's sheer gutsiness in putting forth a model that gives content away for free while making others pay hundreds of dollars a year for the privilege of reading as much content as they want all in one place rather than an article at a time. It's a tricky balancing act.

Links:

Nieman Journalism Lab article.

Bloomberg article. I especially like Dan Ariely's observations near the end of the article, and not just because I've met and like the guy.

The Alternet article that's linked to everywhere.

And a good article on The Street, again, especially at the end (on page 2).

Thanks!

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

For the links. I'm currently just wailing.

[kaffy_r]

Despite my relative poverty, I'm seriously thinking of doing the $15 per month thing. I'm a reporter, I understand the need for the firewall, and I want them to survive. I only wish more online news sources, newspapers in particular, would choose to do the same thing, because it's only going to work if people can't easily find other sources of news.

And yes, what gerisullivan says and points to is all true. Damn it.

[buttonlass.livejournal.com]

What I want is a newspaper/magazine to give me online/Kindle access with a paper subscription. I wish my Saveur sub came with a Kindle version or that if I signed up for the NYT I would get it at my door and available on my computer. I dislike having to choose when it's the same stuff both places.

Also, I think we should all donate to you having a NYT sub online so you can keep linking to the stuff we like.:)