Would You Pay $5 A Month To Read The New York Times Online?

If they want money from me, they'd better stop putting up pointless articles about Agyness Deyn's listless career hunt.

@oldgraygeek: But you see, that's exactly the problem, News is NOT free. The fact that you can get it for free doesn't mean there is no cost attached to reporting. I don't know how it is in New York, but there are almost no reporters covering local news here in Los Angeles. As I said earlier, without those reporters, the local government can do whatever it wants because it knows its activities are mostly out of the public eye. Ask someone from L.A. if they are aware of the deal reached between a handful of unions and City Hall. No one here knows about. Why? because News is not free and the price of good reporting is more than the five dollars you pay for access.

Charolastra

@Urbania: It's very easy to ask for a couple of bucks each month. It's very hard to actually get people to pay it. A lot of people are apparently forgetting that the Times tried this once before. And failed. They will fail again.

@Phyllis Nefler: Thank you, I'm not crazy. I've no idea of the hows and whys, that the Times online acknowledges my paid-up status, and current name, yet does an Autofill on my behalf that brings up memories of the Macarena, unbidden. And I never did the Macarena! But there's the Times smirking at me, doing an auto-fill that's all but extorting me, accusing me of doing the Macarena in the 90's! We were all young, needing the the cash, once! And what else do they know about what I was up to on the Internet in 1996? It's a disquieting thought.

@Gabriel Snyder: Right - with Times Select we saw that the columnists, who had previously sat uncontested in the Most Emailed box, became increasingly irrelevant (and un-emailed) once people had to make that "extra cheese or Maureen Dowd?" financial decision.

@Baroness: RIGHT? Meanwhile I have to re-login just to go to the next page of an article on the LA Times, which they probably then report as an additional subscriber.

@Aaron Altman: I've always agreed with this idea. Recent arguments in favor of Free aside, it seems like the easiest thing in the world is to ask for a couple of bucks each month. I've never subscribed to the New York Times in print, because it was always free online when I needed it. And, as much as I critique it, it's still an indispensable news source. I can only imagine that the majority of their readers feel the same way, and would pay accordingly.

Urbania

@Baroness: Oh me too. I worked at Hachette before they had their own email accounts, so we were bought AOL accounts. Every so often I have to sign in to the NYTimes with that old 1996 account name and password. It's a very weird time warp.

elinorwhyme

I refused to pay for TimesSelect, and I refuse to pay for this. Most people will do the same. Here's the problem: News is free. It is available from thousands of sites. The NYT does have some interesting articles not found elsewhere, and its editorial content is (mostly) top-notch... but we can, and will, live without it. The TimesSelect experiment failed for that reason: they hid their unique content behind the Select wall, and not enough people paid to cross the wall. Without their unique content, millions of us stopped visiting their site. Their online ad revenue -- not enough to keep the paper afloat, but supportive of the Web site -- plummeted. I wish I knew how the Times could raise revenue. I love reading it, and I dread the day when it disappears... but I see that day coming.

oldgraygeek

@zotts: So just how many people were mooching off each paid Times Select membership? And how is this different from rummaging around in the recycling bin at Starbucks?

I would pay that gladly, as long as the money is not spent on baseball teams or new buildings.

I already subscribe to the printed edition, but I suppose I might. I do believe in the Times as a NYC institution, I want it to survive. I can't imagine the city without it, actually. But the very freakiest thing about the Times Online is that to this day, on a different computer and a different century, it greets me under the handle I used in like, 1996 with Times Select. And I'm not married to that Duke anymore. I'm actually fascinated at what pernicious surveillance technology is going on that NYT.com recognizes me from an AOL handle from 1996. One I'd forgotten about. It's quite strange.

i would. don't know why they haven't done it already. $5 is nothing.

CannisterShot

A star for someone who compares the Times to an episode of Seinfeld? That kinda sums up the problem in a nutshell, doesn't it?

Menardo

@Peter Feld: If you factor in the ad revenue and traffic, then I think you need to factor in the hits the reader has to the news organization with how much the news organization receives from the reader. I have thought about this, but then hit a block when I think about how you divide up the extra revenue derived from the isp bills. What would make sense is to treat is as royalties similar to those that record labels collect. But- there needs to be a cap on how much the reader pays each month or no one is going to do it. At the end of the day, the small independent news organizations will likely lose out on this, and that really is not something I want to see continue. We will end up with the same 'quality' we had before.

I hope that regional papers follow suit and are able to make enough to survive. Without strong local coverage its hard to mobilize the public to pressure politicians into doing their job. L.A. desperately needs a quality newspaper to keep people up to speed with what's going on in City Hall. Right now, the city is undergoing the worst budget crisis in its history and no one is reporting it aside from the occasional Daily News article from the marvelous Rick Orlov. It worries me that there is some seriously shady business going on in City Hall between the Mayor, the City Council and the Coalition of L.A. City Unions and no one outside of government knows. Maybe if this city had better coverage, not only would things like this not happen, but we wouldn't have a mayor that was elected by only 150,000 people. Angelinos have to be more involved in local politics and will only be able to do so if they have reliable information outlets. Of course the problem in L.A. is that the L.A. Times is a terrible newspaper and I fear that there is no guarantee that an increased budget will improve local coverage in any significant way.

Charolastra

I don't think I'd pay at this point given that I get most of my news from blogs and other online sources. I read the NYT for style and other such entertainments, but their journalism hasn't been at the front for some time.

Not sure why this is couched in terms of subscribers paying extra for access - aren't the print subscribers already paying their fair share? The goal should be to recover something from people who aren't already print subscribers - let print subscribers in for free...

achates

@probablynotcontagious: By reading Gawker. The biggest problem with the subscription model is that sites like this would always be able to summarize what's behind the pay wall for the people who aren't quite interested enough to hand over their credit card number.

@Peter Feld: agreed re charging consumers directly not being a real option - for the sites it would work for, it's already happening - WSJ, Consumer Reports, etc. NYT content is not so unique that enough people are willing to pay - or they'd already be charging. In my opinion of course. They have good data from TimesSelect experiment. Re cable model, theoretically yes - ISPs are getting the cash today, and if content providers want cash, why not go to the people that have it. But as a practical matter it seems entirely unworkable. I don't believe consumers will accept a tiered pricing model the way they do for cable TV - and even if they did, what's in those tiers? It would be interesting to see the NYT or another media provider company withhold their content from an ISP and demand payment - but mostly interesting as a PR nightmare for the provider. A portion of the consumer payment distributed to content providers based on specific consumer usage that month would be interesting too - but the mechanics and possibility of gaming the system seem unwieldy. I'm a past NYT print subscriber, had the Sunday edition for a couple of years. Still read the NYT online. But I spend more time with and find more value in many highly specific content sources that speak to my unique interests than I do in the NY Times. It has some value for me as the "paper of record," but not in terms of regular usage.

@FrozenHaddock: Today's was one of the easier Thursday puzzles.

Exclamation Mark Violation

part of the problem is that the Times has reduced itself to publishing tons of wannabe-yuppy drivel that I refuse to pay for

ShobhanaAmbustus

Why don't they charge affiliation fees to news aggregate sites that link to articles like Newser, Drudge, Daily Beast, and *cough* Gawker *cough*? Wouldn't that lighten the load? And if I pay the monthly fee, does that mean I can access the entire digital archives?

To be honest, not really. I go to tons of sites that agregate a lot of information that the New York Times would post on their site. I would miss Freakonomics, but whatev. Live and let live.

apollo89

@Cheap Shot: TimesSelect was free for students when they ran the service a few years ago. I loved it then: it was great. I don't know if I would have paid for it though. I did pay for a few articles for research. I guess I *would* pay for it if they were to start charging now, but the cheapo in me wants to flee in terror.

@Peter Feld: Yeah, I'd pay extra to have stuff like this added onto my ISP bill. Is this a poll??

Xylo

Yes, I'd pay 5 bucks a month to read it online (American bucks, right? :D). BUT, I really, really hate giving my credit card info over the internet, so this is one more thing I won't do it for and therefore one more newspaper I won't be able to read online.

Xylo

I think the NYT is the best paper and news source in America, hands down. (Internationally, the BBC has them beat.) I think what really jades people on the Times is that awful filler -- the trend pieces, the fluffy stuff they slip into the Styles section, etc. Even the OpEd, which is only part reliable (due to weaker writers like Friedman and Douthat) is still outstanding. They might think about reducing costs by having less filler and crappy columnists...

@Nic Fit: Let's puzzle-pool. I'll do your Wed, Thu + Sun. Get some crackerjack for the Fri + Sat. $5/3 = cheap!

It's not going to work. It doesn't matter if it's fair, reasonable, or necessary. As soon as you charge anything at all, your numbers go down. On the web, you're competing with every other (free) website in existence. There is only one solution: a cable model where content costs are bundled in with your ISP bill (Roadrunner, whatever). The ISP business is about to get massively more profitable (because they'll be allowed to utilize your browsing data to target ads to you, in a way Google could only envy) and the cost of providing Internet access is ridiculously low... they will have to pay leading commercial sites for providing the content that makes the whole ship fly.

@Dave J.: When I was looking at apartments, my partner would look at a place that was $1495 and say, "It's $1400, which makes it a much better deal than that $1500 one!" It blew my mind every time.

If it came with a Kindle for free or at a very reduced rate, I would be happy to subscribe to NYT (and other newspapers) for a year or two. A cell phone-like model would be ideal... I pay $X a month and get my choice of a few newspapers on a Kindle-like device.

SNForrester

$2.50-5 is more than a fair price to access the Times on the web. However, I'd argue for keeping the price point on the low end, since - in theory - they'd be saving on newsprint and ink and the actual printing of said papers once their online subs grow, and demand for hardcopies decline.

Umm.... I am 30 and will by the print version as long as it exists.

Fair enough. Quite frankly, I don't know how any newspaper expected to make money by giving itself away for free. What the hell kind of business model is that? Keep pricing fair and simple and maybe the NYT can have a long and happy life.

NigelAstydameia

What on earth took them so long? Shouldn't they have come up with this, like, 10-15 years ago? Perhaps then the industry wouldn't now be in trapped in such a downward spiral.

DaeSu

@probablynotcontagious: The rich whites are paying $5 per month to read the Times online. Now you know.

Astigmatism

I wouldn't pay to read the Times online. It's about principle. EX: Seinfeld was extremely expensive to create, yet we got it free everyday! If the Times can't get enough ad revenue to fund their (mismanaged) empire, and online edition (what, are the printing costs too high?) then it's corrupt for them to ask US to make up the difference. It's like the MTA. WHEN will you people learn to doubt the establishment? A: never.

cxb

I'll definetly pay it for only two reasons : "i can't get enough of Maureen's acerbic writing style and krugman's smile.

Mohamed Ndiaye-Kingué

so after all the hand wringing and committees and focus groups and conference call and late nights drafting who-knows-what and editorials about the "death of newspapers," they come up with the most obvious solution: charge for the content. all they had to do was pose the question to a classroom of kindergarteners and they would have saved themselves a lot of sleepless nights.

spotted-dog

I agree, it is inevitable. But I think the pricing should be by household, not by individual. I assume they will consider discounts for students and people with modest incomes. The subscription information should be kept separate from the registration information that's required to comment or participate in their online community.

That is, assuming the they want frank discussion from their readers who like to be anonymous.

Speaking as a sucker who used to pay for online NYT (and then gave everyone I knew the username as password) I'd be dumb enough to do it again.

zotts

I go on an article-by-article basis. If the two sentence teaser at the beginning of a password-protected story really catches my interest, then I'll go about googling a pirated username and password to read the whole thing.

goetz

I would. They should make it $10 a month, $5 is fairly cheap. Don't know why they didn't do it sooner......

SuryaHapkido

@NerD!!! - R.O.A.C.H.: As you can see below, my edit button did not work. Hmm. And yeah, I agree about the Sunday edition.

I call bullshit. It's never worked as a business model. Slate was originally a pay site, that completely crapped out. The NYT is a lot better than most print media, but its not so much better that it can become a luxury good.

Jim Ryan

Unfortunately the Kindle for iPhone doesn't allow you to read periodicals, only books.

GiffordKabobular

When the Kindle for iPhone application came out, I was really excited because I wanted to read the NYT in my phone (the NYT iPhone app crashes TOO frequently to read comfortably). The subscription is $14 a month. That is too much for me, specially considering that it has the same (or less) content that the free iPhone app. $5 is definitely something I would be willing to pay for the Kindle version in my phone.

I will pay it, if they will mail me the crossword everyday every Monday and Tuesday (I'm too dumb to do Wed. - Sun.).

@contains_hot_liquid: Not Living in New York, I've toyed with the idea of getting the Sunday edition. If they would give that and access to the site as a bundle. I would pay for it. YAY! for the edit button!

@92BuickLeSabre: Is this like the way that people see a price of $4.99 and then think that it really costs $4? I can't tell you how many people I know do this.

I used to pay for Times Select, and I'd pay the $5 or 2.50 or whatever it is a month for access.

ipaidipod

@Dave J.: If the Wall Street Journal found a way, I'm sure they could manage a way to still keep the print edition.

TubOfHowardTaft

Doesn't this just hasten the demise of smaller, local media outlets? I guess I'd make a small monthly payment to read the Times (I am a more passionate lover when enraged), but there's no way I'm going to pony up for the Anchorage Daily News just because some blogger linked to it. If the majority of web traffic gets funneled to the few outlets most people subscribe to, what happens to the ad revenues of those left out?

@Cheap Shot: Yah, I remember. I thought they gave it up because it didn't work.

dontread

@Dave J.: You make print a specialty item, and offer things there you wouldn't offer online. Also, take advantage of its printedness (images, art etc.)

@DahlELama: It's inescapable. I've taught this stuff, and I still find myself falling for it all the time.

Stupid brain.

Is there any way that this just doesn't end up with them completely cutting the print edition? I don't see how print survives once they attach a value/cost to the online portion.

Hey New York Times, how about a residual? http://gawker.com/5305503/lets-screw-up-the-entire-internet-to-sav...#c13988383

@92BuickLeSabre: Ha! That's exactly how the thought process went in my head. I feel like such an easy target. Then again, I only read the NYT Online to look at pictures of houses.

DahlELama

I'd pay for it. It'll be car crash interesting to see how this all develops. I wonder how many months/years before a more standard business model emerges (i mean something more complex than the "hey maybe we should charge for this!" model)?

Which likely means that they are really asking if people will pay $2.50 / month.

Questionnaires and menus work the same way. If you put one or two entrees on the menu that are significantly more expensive than the rest, then people are much more willing to purchase an entree from the next price tier.

Here, once people have started processing the idea of paying $5.00 / month, then $2.50 / month seems pretty reasonable.

I still don't think this works unless other papers start something similar but it's a step in the right direction, certainly. Only time will tell if the NYT (And other papers) offer something that people will want badly enough to pay for.

You know, $5/month actually seems relatively reasonable for the Times, assuming they don't start partitioning out "special content" sections that cost you more.

Is it just me, or does anyone remember when they charged for each article?

I'd pay $5/month to read The Onion online, but they're going to have to up their coverage of turkey sandwiches being an excellent source of turkey sandwiches and area men doing things.

They had a heard enough time getting me to sign up for free

sennheiserz

So print subscribers would pay only $2.50 per month ($30 per year) on top of their print subscription? That seems completely reasonable to me. If it's $5 (or $60 per year) for print subscribers, I'm a lot less excited. I'm still curious about a couple of the details - would this fee give access to the archives. Will today's news still be free?

Could this mean no more gawker links to NYT trend pieces? But how will we know what the rich whites are up to?!

probablynotcontagious

@Baroness: Yeah and how many computers have we had since now and then? How do they KNOW?

elinorwhyme

Five Dollars? Thank you Mr. Mortimer.

Times Select didn't work out that well. Why would this? I subscribed to the online Reader this year (mistake) thinking it would be better than the regular internet version. It's not really. Ultimately you discover that the Times has pretty much the same news any other newspaper or any other news source you can read on the net. . . Since I stopped working almost 3 years ago I haven't bought a hard copy of any paper yet. Old habits don't die that hard.

MassimoWoodpecker

Five dollars? Would I spend five one-dollar bills, per month, to read the NYT on line? I can't believe this is up for debate. Yea. I'd spend money I wouldn't miss to keep abreast of all the news in all the world and editorials I can't read anywhere else, and link after link of stuff I don't care about but when I get there I really enjoy the info and I learn something I didn't know earlier that day and WTF??? For the NYT, I'd probably do $7.50.

@eXXX: Hasn't it already? After all, not everyone in the Internet news business is losing money.

The notion that everyone that reads the NYT in paper form will eventually be reading it on the Internet isn't all that new. Having to charge for net access is an admition that management there totally missed the boat back when they could have been the worlds news agregator, ONLINE as well as off.

They didn't invest when they were high on the hog. Now it's time for desperate measures. The next question will be how much unique content they have, not covered by the wire services, not available on Yahoo News, Google News or the dozens of remaining local paper websites.