New York Times Insists It Can Stay Part Of The Conversation With 'First Click Free'
from the yeah,-good-luck dept
While I've still been linking to NY Times articles for Techdirt posts, if there are decent stories on the same subject elsewhere, I've been starting to use those other sources instead. That's because I know we're getting closer and closer to 2011 -- when the NY Times has promised to lock up its content behind a paywall. The company still keeps pretending that it can have the best of both worlds, and is apparently insisting that the paywall won't remove it from the wider conversation because it will allow a "first click free" sort of program, whereby you'll be able to read an article once if you click through from another site, before being asked to pay. While that might make the NY Times comfortable, it doesn't make me comfortable at all. If there are no other options, I may still link to NY Times content, but I'm certainly going to be a lot more cautious linking to it. Why would I even risk pissing off my readers by a lockout when I can point them to another site that actually wants that traffic?
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Filed Under: conversation, links, openness, paywall
Companies: ny times
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Good job!
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Re: Good job!
We are nearing the day when actual reporters will get paid for their work directly by the public, and politicians and other PR crap will approach the public directly instead of through shitty newspapers like the NY times.
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If not, it could be a business opportunity!
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Tell me: Do you like cream cheese or ham on your prepared bagel?
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I think:
You're kidding yourself if you think you have readers. The reality is that you have trolls. Trolls you can't properly engage.
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I think the NYT may buck the trend by actually getting subscribers. The news may be obtainable elsewhere but they have a lot of unique features.
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hey you
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....from the guy who posted four comments in fifteen minutes....
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Hey saladins pie
If you're in marketing, creating buzz is the goal.
So are you saying I'm successful?
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Why link at all?
Are you trying to give credit to the source of your information? Are you trying to bolster the credibility of your own reports? Are you attempting to give readers access to more information, if they so desire?
I'm a reporter who enjoys and certainly appreciates when you link to my stories. And I certainly have questions about the wisdom of the paywall model. So don't mistake what I'm about to say...
But I worry that this attitude is slightly paternalistic to your readership. I mean, maybe some of your readers WOULD pay, so why make that choice for them? And, if they don't want to, I'm sure they're all technologically savvy enough to use search engines and such to hunt for additional news reports, if they are curious enough to follow up.
You've often spoken about the need of content creators to give consumers a reason to pay. And pointed out innovative techniques by musicians and filmmakers who do such a thing. And we all admire those efforts. But the key question for the rest of us it seems is what efforts do we reward? What behavior do we incentivize? Does everything have to be a flat and free model or can content creators pursue pay models, foolish or smart? Why not let readers make their own choices?
I understand that clicking on a link that is locked behind a paywall can be aggravating, and you may not want to risk reader aggravation, but that's simple enough to solve: Just add a little note after the link, like (P) that indicates a non-free link.
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Want me to re-post your 50 pages of rants about government collusion? I really liked you up until that very point.
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If he continues linking to NYT, is he not making a simiar choice for us? By changing where he links, he's not suddenly making a choice where a choice wasn't before... he's just making a DIFFERENT choice. We still have the ability to use whatever source we want to for further research.
Now, if he were to 'stop making choices for us', he wouldn't link anywhere. He'd just say 'go look it up for yourself'.
Now, if I'm a NYT fan, and I feel that the NYT would give me the best information about a topic, I'll go there, log into my pay account, and start searching.
Me? I'll go to Google News and see who is carrying the story and paruse a few to get the info from as many sources as I can. If those sources ask me to pay, I'll move along to another free source.
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TechDirt is a site that provides commentary and analysis on interesting news stories. As such, it makes sense to link to the stories referenced in the TechDirt posts. It's not any more complicated than that.
I understand that clicking on a link that is locked behind a paywall can be aggravating, and you may not want to risk reader aggravation, but that's simple enough to solve: Just add a little note after the link, like (P) that indicates a non-free link.
I've seen that method used. And I never click on the link. Yes, it may be a bit paternalistic to not link to sites that require registration, but I think it's about mitigating risk. You can either link to a site that you know everyone will be able to access or you can link to a site that you know a relatively small percentage of people will be able to link to. Based on the model used by TechDirt, it makes sense to do the former. It's not any more compicated than that.
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He uses what's available, with a preference for whoever actually wants to let people read their articles without demanding money, that way he can be sure that any of his readers who want to follow up, can do so.
Not paternalistic, not contrary to anything he has ever said.
As to what behaviour you might want to encourage, well you have advertisers who are paying your employers to deliver eyeballs and hopefully further interaction for their advertisements, encouraging those eyeballs would seem to be the idea.
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Thats just how I see it.
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Wow...I'm actully pretty impressed with my own output....
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First Click Free, Sweet, no more paywall
1)You can spoof the paywall into thinking its always your first visit by shutting off referrer URL's / blocking cookies
2) hords of new "freenytimes4u.com" and "nytimes132.com"'s will pop up that simply index nytimes so you can browse headlines and have your first click-thru from the index site for each article. This way its always your first click
Also curious, does the 1st click reset itself whenever you leave the site? after an hour? after a day? never? I highly doubt someone will pay for a subscription after reading one article. I'd want to know that there was more than one journalist that could actually write something..
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Re: Good job!
That really isn't how it works...
If I find great articles, I register and join that community. If all you want is to find me to sell me ads, I'm just not interested in joining that community.
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So people are smart enough to search for the paywall-free version of a news story if he links to the paid one, but not smart enough to search for the paid version of a news story if he links the paywall-free one?
Unless you meant he should provide an exhaustive link of every news outlet who covers a particular story (which would be ridiculous).
What he should do is provide a link that maximizes the number of people who can see it. A non-paywall site can be seen by 100% of his readership, whereas a paywall site can be seen by less than 100% of his readership. The chouce is clear.
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If it's to source information you can't get anywhere else, that's one thing.
If it's to credit, that's one thing.
If it's to just note a first-report about some topic, that's one thing.
If it's to bolster credibility, that's one thing.
If it's to point readers in a direction for more info, that's one thing.
I don't think my argument is tantamount to providing an exhaustive link to every news outlet who covers a story. Please don't simplify what I'm saying that way.
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It just struck me as odd that when Mike suggests that he chose a different link to provide - one that doesn't sit behind a pay-wall - it suddenly becomes him making choices for his readers. Again, as I said, he's not doing anything new. He's just changing one path for another... but a path is still being provided.
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Anyone who calls Dark Helmet as "Darky Darster" isn't living up to their full potential and needs schooling at "The Maz School of Waaazup". Dark Helmet better referred to as Dr. Doom or Professor Dumbass, in the correct situation.
Also, It's President Scroob, not President Scrooge. Get your names straigh
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He is stating a linkage policy of non paywall links unless absolutely necessary, you want unnecessary links put in, to give a particular business model a chance.
If a business model needs good will efforts from people with no reason to be helpful for it to work then it's already a failure.
And the only obvious way to go, if you want him to not choose who to link to and yet still provide links, is for an exhaustive list of links some to paywalled content and the rest to free content.
When he links to content, it drives traffic to that content, he is under no obligation to a paper or someone else's business model to drive content to them, it has to suit him as with any choices people make, if paywall doesn't suit him then why should he promote it?
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If the NYT story becomes the basis for his own report, he becomes paternalistic in the sense that he's deciding that the story is good enough for him, but not worth the money for anybody else.
Why wouldn't Mike just avoid reading the NYT himself? If it's not worth the money...if he feels he can get access to the information elsewhere....right?
But by reading a NYT story, and deciding to use the reporting as the basis for his own post, but then choosing to link somewhere else, that becomes a conscious decision on his part. Yes, he's making a choice.
I offer up this argument with all due respect to the TechDirt community.
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BE AFRAID CHILDREN!
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And on the internet, that one thing is, "valuable" to the person or organisation being linked to.
Links relate to traffic, lack of traffic relates to failure of an internet business model every bit as much as lack of traffic relates to failure of a high street store.
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But the choice he is talking about making is dependent on the choice a business makes as to whether to put themselves behind the paywall or not.
He already said that if it was a unique story he would still consider linking to it, just that he would have to be careful as people, all people, not just those who regularly read techdirt dislike being given links that they would have to register to follow, nevermind register and pay to follow.
If he chooses not to link to NYT, it is not hampering their chances of trialling their "innovative"(cof) business plan, it is simply a choice he will make which is reliant on the choices NYT makes.
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Re: Hey saladins pie
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I link to provide a way for the community to follow through and see the material I used in writing the story and to dig deeper themselves. Sometimes I'll include a "via" link -- which is mainly just for credit, but those are small and rarely the main link in the story.
But I worry that this attitude is slightly paternalistic to your readership. I mean, maybe some of your readers WOULD pay, so why make that choice for them? And, if they don't want to, I'm sure they're all technologically savvy enough to use search engines and such to hunt for additional news reports, if they are curious enough to follow up.
Hmm. Well, I guess I would argue that *OF COURSE* I make choices. I choose what to post about. So, no matter what I'm "making choices" for the readership. Some stuff I post about and others I don't.
You've often spoken about the need of content creators to give consumers a reason to pay. And pointed out innovative techniques by musicians and filmmakers who do such a thing. And we all admire those efforts. But the key question for the rest of us it seems is what efforts do we reward? What behavior do we incentivize? Does everything have to be a flat and free model or can content creators pursue pay models, foolish or smart? Why not let readers make their own choices?
Readers can make their own choices. Nothing I do prevents them from doing so. But there's simply no reason for me to link to a paywalled site if it's going to piss off the majority of readers *and* there's a better option out there.
I understand that clicking on a link that is locked behind a paywall can be aggravating, and you may not want to risk reader aggravation, but that's simple enough to solve: Just add a little note after the link, like (P) that indicates a non-free link.
That only solves the risk of reader aggravation. But what if my goal is to also help the readers learn more, rather than just avoid aggravating them?
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I can see what they're trying to do in an age of declining advertising revenue with little or no prospect of it getting any better but in the end, to me, it's a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Will the pay wall replace the revenue lost? I doubt it.
Will it prevent copyright infringement or its distant cousin the fear of copyright infringement which seems to be the motivation behind other paywalls? I doubt it.
Will grabbing at this straw save the sinking ship? No.
I do see your point, Eriq, and in some respects agree with it. But saying it's paternalistic is going a little overboard.
What Mike's trying to do is avoid the hassle of sending readers to a site, any site, that has a first click policy in place to try to get people to buck up for the paywall and annoying his readers. That's his choice and he's clearly said what he'll do.
As a reader I get to make my own judgment of this policy and when it works and doesn't.
It's his choice and he's explained it to us and why he's going to do it. I can then judge accordingly.
If it gets in the way I'll let Mike know. I doubt it will though.
If it's paternalism that offends you try Facebook, Bing or many other sites that are far more advanced in their paternalism. Or any other site that makes choices similar to this and either denies them or eventually says "its for the user's own good" or some other silly thing.
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Providing a link that is locked (for any reason) is not just aggravating. It is rude. It is bad enough linking to sites that have so much advertising that they lock up my browser or, worst, my whole machine. If my community leader decides that he can't be bothered to find, if possible, freely available information, then I can't be bothered to waste my time reading what he or she has to say.
My TechDirt time is my happy time. The fact that Mike puts some thought into the care and feeding of this rabid riot of thinkers and stinkers only makes it happier. (No, that is not a euphemism...but it could be.)
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Re: Hey saladins pie
And now I'll go back to being succesful at being a human being.
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That only solves the risk of reader aggravation. But what if my goal is to also help the readers learn more, rather than just avoid aggravating them?
This also puts the onus on you for know if you are linking to a site with a paywall or not and to make sure you have your links all set up the right way. That's not the correct way to generate traffic.
I also want to point out that when you link to a broken link or one your reading public can't access at will, *you* lose credibility.
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It doesn't work. So it's a guess, but probably when Mike fixes it!
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Re: Re: Hey saladins pie
Wow you read them? I feel almost honored that whenever you read crappy comments you always think it's me.
-sigh-
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Keep writing. I'll keep reading.
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mainstreet gangland
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NYT seems to be testing
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But it will still lose a significant amount of readers due to this ridiculous paywall
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