I’m sure going to miss reading the NYTimes editorials (especially Krugman) when they switch over to the paid-subscription-only TimesSelect system next week. But like all addictions, a little time and I’ll hardly feel the pain.
You have to wonder if the $40 subscriptions that they get will make up for the lost ad revenue. Will going pay-only reduce the number of links from blogs, websites, and other newspapers, thus reducing traffic?
I wish they would consider a Salon-style system – force me to watch a 30 second commercial for a free “daily pass.”
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I’m pretty annoyed about this decision, too, and Salon’s thirty-second commercial seems like a workable alternative. I think the bigger loss will be the degre to which they will cut themselves off from public discourse online.
I’ll miss Krugman and Rich, too, and I’ll even miss David Brooks. But I’m not willing to pay $40 a month to read their columns.
I don’t think I’ll miss David Brooks that much, but only because I have a hard time with people who write in binaries. His columns almost always boil down to: there are two kind of X in the world, the As and the Bs.
Drives me a bit batty, I have to say.
Ok, I have to take it back. David Brooks’ column today is pretty funny. And no binaries.
To be clear, I’m usually laughing at David Brooks, not with him. But I do find his sociology-lite attempts to map everything into a red-blue culture war bizarrely fascinating.
At least he’ll still be on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer.