The New York Times is poised to stop charging readers for online access to its Op-Ed columnists and other content, The Post has learned....It was always such a bad idea. Why did they even persist this long? It's been so annoying not to be able to link to things, and I even cut down on reading the things I couldn't link to. It was particularly absurd that they put their bloggers behind the wall. But the ultimate absurdity for me was writing a guest column and not being able to link to my own column.
While other online publications were abandoning subscriptions, the Times took the opposite approach in 2005 and began charging for access to well-known writers, including Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich and Thomas L. Friedman.
The decision, which also walled off access to archives and other content, was controversial almost from the start, with some of the paper's own columnists complaining that it limited their Web readership.
August 7, 2007
Killing TimesSelect.
Yay!
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43 comments:
The DeathStar of the Liberal Media has changed its business plan! The witless scion of the Sulzberger Fifth Column just removed the Pay-to-View of his silly squad of nitwit regulars on the Op-Ed page.
Looks like Murdoch taking over at the WSJ has already caused Pinch to soil his underwear!
The fact that they chose to charge removed their columnists from public eye--the fact they continued reflects both their arrogance and ignorance of the new media--and given they went crazy when Murdoch took over the WSJ makes dave's point on the money.
What sorts of goods do you have to auction off in exchange for a Paypal donation?
I'm kind of disappointed. I was happy not to be re-directed to yet more NY Times links.
It was like the biggest smog producing factory in town closed down for a couple of years and now it's opening up again.
There goes the clear skies.
I am so grateful I DIDN'T marry anyone I was in love with when I was young.
Ooops. Off-topic, and can't elaborate further.
I like the NYT and I am a cheapskate and did not subscribe so I personally happy to get all content for free but I question the business decision. While I would guess they did not get huge revenues from TimesSelect, I bet many people subscribed to the real paper so they could get the physical copy and to get all the articles. They are a "business" and need to pay the bills. According to my high math, they made over $10 million a year from just the TimeSelect subscribers. We shall see......
I'd stopped reading the NY Times before they introduced TimesSelect, mostly because they'd become little more than expensive toilet paper.
I'm simply not one to keep on with something solely because its got a history...
I may be missing something but I agree with Froggy - how is it that we have come to feel entitled to the works of the masters free of charge? What is the incentive to subscribe to the hard copy NYT these days for the average consumer (i.e. non clipping service or media-pack assembler)? Is it that we expect such a preeminent business to turn into a public radio-esque forum? Will we have weeks at a time where we open the paper (or the webpage) only to find nothing but fund appeals?
I hope I'm missing something about the structure of the Times or its funding and in the meantime am of course happy to have access, notwithstanding the feeling of an undeserved 'guilty pleasure.'
I'd wondered if they had a premium section. I never pay attention to those login screens (I just use my little bugmenot favelet and head in if it works). Bugmenot.com apparently had some logins for TimesSelect, so the occasions I had to read their articles, I didn't have any problems.
PM
It's called "advertising"
As far as I can tell, I have been the biggest anti-NY Times commenter on Althouse of the last 2 years.
I now confess that I have had a subscription to Times Select since it began.
Sigh . . .
Since I paid for the whoile year in advance . . . will their be a refund?
Maxine Weiss said...
I am so grateful I DIDN'T marry anyone I was in love with when I was young.
Ooops. Off-topic, and can't elaborate further.
Can't elaborate further. WHAT? You can't just say, "can't elaborate further" and then dash off like that as if tending to a boiling teakettle is more important than our knowing The Truth.
Get back here, Maxine. You've got some explaining to do. First of all, who were the "anyones" you were in love with? Where are they now and what did you do to them? Show us to the bodies.
Secondly, you married someone you did not love? How could you do that? Were you fully disclosing of that fact to the other individual before that person otherwise unwittingly entered with you into a legal contract?
And finally, Sweetheart, where is the love? The peace?
You've changed.
2 years to change Times Select.... Wow! That's 38 times longer than the Duranty farce and they still haven't come off that.
I feel bummed. Now when I ignore MoDowd it doesn't cost the Gray B*tch a dime.
But the ultimate absurdity for me was writing a guest column and not being able to link to my own column.
That's funny, because for me the ultimate absurdity was your getting a guest column.
"the works of the masters"
Gag.
What I'm curious about is if they declare it a success as they kill it off. Bet they do.
Yay for free! If they raise prices on subscription to puzzles to help make up for this (+ads) then I QUIT!
These same authors hang out atcruciverb.com
Doyle: missed you on the latest Beauchamp thread! which is it: he was tortured into recanting or "FBA"
And will he take up John Kerry's legacy?
Puts it into persepective though - you guys nominated a Scott Beauchamp for president...
how is it that we have come to feel entitled to the works of the masters free of charge? …… Is it that we expect such a preeminent business to turn into a public radio-esque forum?
Heh….funny cause it seems like the progressive wing of the Democratic party expects that very thing from medical care, pharmaceuticals to the oil industry.
NYT needs to pay us to read them
NYT needs to pay us to read them.
Ann wants to get paid to eat egg salad.
Good point, SteveR. I spent a hard-earned ten bucks for a chance to watch Althouse gag on egg. It seems reasonable for the NYTimes to shell out, say, a dime each to watch us all gag on some of the eggs they lay.
Since I'm at a university I got TS for free. Now I feel as though I was getting a benefit and the greedy bastards have taken it away. May they rot in hell.
Isn't there any way you could put Doyle behind the AlthouseSelect wall?
Paul is on it! perhaps you could put some more of our "quaint" bloggers behind an Althouse Select Wall and let us pay for the joy of interacting with them. Great Idea Paul--this could change the face of blogging and could even create an enhanced income stream for our hostess.
Oddly enough, I feel disappointed, I rather liked MoDowd et al. excluded from the great conversation that is the blogosphere.
Maxine probably has her Venus in Capricorn. She couldn't help it, the stars said she had to marry for money, not love.
"could even create an enhanced income stream for our hostess"
Are there that many readers out there so eager to read Doyle they'd pay? Unlikely, especially now that TimesSelect is history. They can get their fill of high-octane BDS rants, somewhat more coherent and for free, from Rich and Krugman.
Ann said, "the ultimate absurdity for me was writing a guest column and not being able to link to my own column."
You're a lawyer with a writer for an ex-husband, you should have known how to negotiate rights -- simply tell them you're only giving them non-exclusive internet rights.
Then even if you can't link to them, you can just put it on the web yourself and link to that.
The only web publishers who will balk at that (I write for a living) are those who don't want material replicated elsewhere because of potential search engine problems. But since the NYT syndicates their stuff it's clear they don't worry about that.
tjl: given the amount of time people spend arguing with our trolls, and acknowledging they only encourage trollery, I am betting they enjoy the arguing and name calling--its a money maker, I tell you.
Re: "Maxine probably has her Venus in Capricorn. "
I once had my Taurus in Pisces.
It took 10 stitches, several bottles of Mad Dog 20/20, and 3 years of therapy to get that out of my head.
Paddy O said:
"I'm kind of disappointed. I was happy not to be re-directed to yet more NY Times links. "
Me too- these columnists (Dowd, Rich, Herbert) are utter has-beens though I always felt Dowd was pretty attractive for her age (if she would agree to tape that nasal whine of hers shut).
Pogo, I needed that endorphin rush. Thank you.
Christy said it.
And here I thought I was the one with the filthy mind. . .
Err, and the fingers to type it out.
I didn't miss the NYT editorials while they were gone, and I doubt I'll notice now that they're back again.
There is not one good thing about the NYTimes. Even their resident "conservative" is a wimp, David Brooks, who writes about babies names=blech.
Sorry I won't be reading any of their editorials unless they are by a real conservative.
Modo does have nice tits for an old hag but I wouldn't fuck her with Bea Arthur's dick.
Will NYT postpone the ending of TimesSelect just to make NYPost look inaccurate and foolish?
Did the Post write up this story to entice their competitor into continuing with a losing strategy?
The Dowdisms are sometimes entertaining:
Maureen: "The New York Times is poised to stop... its Op-Ed columnists... abandoning... well-known writers, including Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich and Thomas L. Friedman."
Did the MYT lnk-generator help with this?
http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink
May be moot now...
edit: NYT... d'oh
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