Why The NY Times Shouldn't Charge -- Part II
from the exactly dept
Last week, the news came out that the NY Times was thinking about adding a subscription fee to their online version. At the time, we gave a bunch of reasons why it seemed like a backwards move that would only hasten the downfall of the newspaper. Long time technology and business reporter (even for the NYT) Michael S. Malone has written up a much more compelling explanation for why a subscription fee would kill the times, describing it as sacrificing "long-term influence to short-term profits." The problem is that the NY Times doesn't realize that influence is the currency of the news market these days, and closing yourself off actually decreases your influence significantly. In fact, he points out the funniest part about the NYT's thinking on the subject. Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. complains that they can't "train" a generation of news readers to expect news for free. Malone points out how laughable it is that the NYTs thinks that they, alone, can train anyone on how they should read the news.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
bleh
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
65 percent solution
[ link to this | view in chronology ]