March 23, 2011

Now that the NYT paywall is up...

... when I want to blog about a basic news story — e.g., Elizabeth Taylor has died — I go to the Washington Post site, or other standard new site. For the last 7 years of blogging, I nearly always went to the NYT, linking several times a day. That's over.

62 comments:

The Crack Emcee said...

The NYT is just for movie, book, and theatre reviews. And even those can't be trusted.

I thought you knew!

Mel Plontz said...

Skinflint!

Scott M said...

That's over.

The NYT or your going to their website? One can never tell these days...

Ann Althouse said...

@Melvin I'm skinflinting on behalf of my readers. I don't want to send them to articles that will force them to have to pay. I'd pay and read, maybe, but I don't want to spend time reading things that I'm not going to blog. I'll read elsewhere.

Drew said...

And thus, the influence of the New York Times shrinks even further.

Yay!

Phil 314 said...

One of many ways to get around the firewall

And an interesting graph regarding the economics (or lack thereof) of the firewall

Peter V. Bella said...

This will turn out to be a big mistake for the ugly gray lady. NYT is not the Wall Street Journal, which has charged for its electronic version since its inception.

WSJ is a must read for people in the business and investment community. There is no compelling reason to read the NYT.

NYT has lost its luster long ago. It only survives because of the ego and hubris of its owners. If it went out of business no one would miss it.

Phil 314 said...

More ways around

bagoh20 said...

Yeaaaaaaa!

Supporting such an institution was always a mistake. Good move.

Anonymous said...

Heard Dick Morris on O'Reilly the other night.

Morris says that the NYT Book Review has recategorized conservative books into its "Do It Yourself" list to prevent those books from dominating its non-fiction best seller lists.

20 freebies a month from the NYT is plenty for me.

I only read the sports news from time to time. The Post and Daily News both are better.

vw: yakabla

No doubt about that. Yak! Yak! Bla! Bla!

Simon said...

The internet is very zen. If you put a rock (such as a paywall or even just mandatory registration) in the river of information, the river will simply flow around the rock. Unless the New York Fishwrap has something of unique value, people will go elsewhere, because the same stuff is available elsewhere. You can't sell water next to a public water fountain.

Anonymous said...

How quaint - charging for a horse and buggy ride.

I can see day when the Times will only be sold across 59th street from the Plaza Hotel, and only to sentimental tourists.

bagoh20 said...

cost vs benefit - slayer of bad ideas - when consulted.

Anonymous said...

So, if you're looking for that latest conservative best seller at Barnes and Noble...

You'll find it in the Do It Yourself section.

lemondog said...

re: Zen,

NYT slideshow

NYT Obit

TMink said...

Good! They have taken another big step toward obsolescence.

Don't let the door hit you on the ass as you fade into obscurity.

Trey

Michael said...

Just so long as you found a less liberal news source. Oh, wait, you said the Washington POST. Never mind. ;)

Tank said...

St

You might be surprised at B & N. My wife works at one and, at her store at least, they're in the business of selling books, not making political statements. They put the bestsellers right in front.

Ann Coulter had a new book out a while back and some people called to ask that the store not sell it (really, it was organized). They were told, "Mam, we sell books."

Almost Ali said...

I remember when The New York Times meant something, when it was part of the businessman's standard, commuter uniform.

Now it's Carlos Slim. And Mo Dowd hanging on for dear life.

Anonymous said...

Ann Coulter had a new book out a while back and some people called to ask that the store not sell it (really, it was organized). They were told, "Mam, we sell books."

The left does the strangest things these days, doesn't it?

The notion that Coulter is so toxic that she should be banned...

Who would have expected the left to go in that direction?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

That's over.

That's what Gov Walker said...

Drew said...

The notion that Coulter is so toxic that she should be banned...

Who would have expected the left to go in that direction?


Ummmm . . . everyone?

rhhardin said...

The WSJ itself is left-wing, contrary to stereotype.

Editorially it's right-wing, but the news department has long slanted left.

David said...

Still, Althouse, you are paying NYT exactly what their link is worth.

Nothing.

Rich B said...

So the paywall is the internet version of a black hole. I could see a Star Trek themed skit with Pinch Sulzberger as Captain Kirk. From my desk.

Henry said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Henry said...

I've been registered at the nytimes.com for a number of years. Yesterday they emailed me a link to acquire free access for six months, sponsored by Lincoln.

Lincoln. The car maker.

Me drive a Lincoln? It is to laugh!

The offer does makes one humorously overaware of who they think their readership is. The silk stockings live on.

PatHMV said...

Ann, regarding your 9:42am comment, my understanding was that if YOU pay and then link to the stories, then all of us would be able to read those stories for free (they would count against our 20 "freebies," but even if we had no such "freebies" left, we'd still be able to read stories if you linked to them), so I wouldn't agree with your 9:42 characterization that we would be "forced" to have to pay to read those articles that you link to.

Not that I care, as I have refused to read any NYTimes stories that require registration to read, which they've done for a very long time.

Factory Yoyo said...

I got an invite yesterday from NYTimes that gave me the rest of 2011 free, courtesy of Lincoln Motors.

Despite that they are horribly left wing, I do like Circuits and some of the sports articles. Though I will continue to peruse the OpEd everyday as I like to laugh in the morning.

Unknown said...

I read somewhere the paywall is costing a small fortune to put up and they're still working on it.

Methinks the stockholders are wise to Pinch's looting the family biz.

Fen said...

Ann, regarding your 9:42am comment, my understanding was that if YOU pay and then link to the stories, then all of us would be able to read those stories for free

Truly, the NYTs should be paying Althouse. The only time I bother to read Pravda is when she links to it.

Henry said...

@Factory Yoyo -- You too! We must have won the lottery.

My biggest objection to the old Times Select was that it embargoed the sports columnists. That really annoyed me. Losing the political columnists was no big loss. For most of them, all you need is a title and you can fill in the boilerplate.

Tibore said...

Yeah, I remember the last time the Times tried something similar (I think it was just for the OpEd section back then, was it not?). I've never read that part of the Times since.

And now, they want to cut off the rest of the paper? Oh well... bye, Times. Bye-bye.

Smilin' Jack said...

Hee--I got that offer from Lincoln too. It just said it was from "Lincoln"--I had to do some checking before it realized it was Lincoln cars. My God, they still make those?!

LordSomber said...

On campus here you can pick up the NYT for free. I skim through it then get online to get the bigger picture.

Even the NYT crossword isn't worth doing until Thursdays.

Rockport Conservative said...

Because I am a registered non-paying reader of the NYT I got an email explaining the rules. Unfortunately I deleted the actual email as I have been out of town and had so many to go through. I cannot quote exactly but the gist of it was this: I have access to 20 articles per month; any linked articles from someone else may be read by the person who clicks on the link. It doesn't sound too bad to me as I seldom ever really looked at it anyway.

Chip Ahoy said...

What???!!?!111¡!?

Elizabeth Taylor died?

Now I'm really sad.

vbspurs said...

I am thinking of paying the iPad in-app fee. :-/

I gave up my NYT subscription in 2002, after having had it since I was 16 (when my parents gifted a yearly subscription, as my birthday present).

Someone talk me out of this, please.

Chip Ahoy said...

Agreed, it's fun watching them strangle themselves. But defeating the overlays placed on top of the desired articles are fairly easy hacks. "B" click "inspect elements" reveals the <div>s that are to be removed if you care to examine the lines of code, which I don't, and I don't know anyone eager enough for free NYT to even bother.

Here's how to hack the NYT Pay Wall if there were ever anything so interesting to bother to hack that wasn't available elsewhere.

Not mentioned in the article above, when it comes to these obscuring overlays, you can also usually select the entire page and paste it onto a text document where the text is preserved but not all the CSS. Then read the article separately from the overlay.

Or, you can B click and select "view source" locate the article by "control F" read it from there or copy/paste to a new document.

Unknown said...

A cat on hot thin roof

Unknown said...

Reflections in a Golden Eye my mothr´s favorite
Mine : The them of the shrew

vbspurs said...

Belkys (Nerey?), no offence, but -what??

Unknown said...

Elizabeth Taylor is more important than the imitation of the business model used by FT

Anonymous said...

The Net interprets the New York Times as damage and routes around it.

Unknown said...

Sorry, commented in the wrong post. And Belkys is not a name but the initials of our names.; my wife and me. Sometimes she comments others me. We are lawyers and professors , constitutional law ,in Venezuela

vbspurs said...

Gotcha, Belkys. As you may know, it is a common modern Cuban name, for girls, too.

chickelit said...

Peter v. Bella wrote:
NYT has lost its luster long ago. It only survives because of the ego and hubris of its owners. If it went out of business no one would miss it.
____________

The New York Times will go the way of The Capital Times in Madison. It's only a matter of time now.

CBCD said...

Bye bye NY Times, aka The Marxist-Leninist Gazette.

Fen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fen said...

Someone talk me out of this, please.

The only reason to read Pravda is to get a sense of what narrative the Left will be pushing next.

Once you get past that, you realize that if you're going to spend your time reading fiction, there are better authors than Dowd, et al.

Your call. I do it with Wapo. You need some kind of balance from whatever information brokers you use. But I trust Wapo much more than the NYTs... as if that means much.

Chas S. Clifton said...

As a professor, I got a login and password when the NYT was promoting readership on our campus (putting out free papers, handing out tote bags, etc.).

Now I'm curious to see if it cuts off after twenty stories.

As a blogger, I share your concern--I hate it when blogs send me to sites behind paywalls.

Ned said...

Party!!!

vbspurs said...

Your call. I do it with Wapo. You need some kind of balance from whatever information brokers you use. But I trust Wapo much more than the NYTs... as if that means much.

I read the NYT online the same way I listen to NPR every day -- their political stances are crap, but I love their cultural coverage. Never miss their Book reviews, e.g.

But yeah, thanks, Fen. :P

wv: tapdat (you know you would)

Joe Hogan said...

I have to agree with PatHMV, the Times says in its online explanation of the policy that, "Readers who come to Times articles through links from search, blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter will be able to read those articles, even if they have reached their monthly reading limit. For some search engines, users will have a daily limit of free links to Times articles."

Leaving aside people's political or other issues with the Times, having to pay for links from this site or any other shouldn't be a problem unless one is linking from one of the unnamed search engines.

It seems to be an non-issue.

sixty-five said...

Basic news reporting is available from any number of free sources. I'm enjoying the WSJ for its arts and lifestyle stuff - also the Boston Globe, Washington Post, and LA Times. Waiting to see how it all shakes out.

former law student said...

Could Jared from PCWorld be wrong?

http://www.pcworld.com/article
/222441
/new_york_times_paywall_a
_small_change_that_seems_big.html

But wait. The 20-article limit isn't hard and fast. If you land on a New York Times story through a Web search, a blog link or social media, it's free. Some search engines may enforce a daily limit on articles, but other inbound links will still be free and unlimited. I'll remind you that the Times already links to many of its stories on Twitter, and if they don't, someone else will.

Skippy said...

Althouse wants to get paid for her"work" with this blog, going to great lengths to advertise products at Christmas of which she approves and that one can buy through her handy-danty portal to Amazon. She even asks people to chuck dimes her way via Paypal. God forbid that one of the companies from which she sucks materials to criticize daily would want people to pay for employees and electricity. God forbid.

JAL said...

I stopped a couple years ago.

Forgot my password for the ones I could get to ...

There have been some links from blogs to interesting articles in recent weeks (I was always surprised when I ended up on a NY Times story). A couple I sent on. Mmmm. Wonder if those links are dead now.

No matter.

No one is home there and they definitely don't leave the lights on for the surfers.

You know, if they just had an AMAZON link on their pages, they might break even and pay the stockholders something too .... wonder if they considered that?

Skippy said...

...and maybe the further irony is that the NYT provided Althouse with thousands of dollars of free advertising after it covered her marriage to Mead in a long article. Biting the hand that lured -- and linked, probably -- readers to her blog.

What a whiner.

JAL said...

I remember a couple years ago when the threat was there to do away with charitable deduction for income taxes. There was another story of similar annoyance going around at the same time. Don't remember what it might hae been ....

Anyway -- I mentioned them to a friend who was genuinely startled. "I read the NY Times online evry day and I haven't seen anything about that!" he exclaimed in disbelief.

I told him he needed to read something else.

But he was an Obama voter so he didn't know there were any other sources of information.

Skippy said...

@ JAL: Anyway -- I mentioned them to a friend who was genuinely startled. "I read the NY Times online evry day and I haven't seen anything about that!" he exclaimed in disbelief. I told him he needed to read something else.

That your friend didn't read about something in the NYT doesn't mean it wasn't reported.

Product Person said...

Filed under "gee wiz that was quick" - 4 lines of JavaScript code is all it takes for The New York Times’ paywall to come tumbling down - http://ht.ly/4mCih