New York Times Paywall: Success or Bust?

The New York Times recently installed a subscription system on their website.  After a user exhausts his or her 20 free articles each month, they are asked to buy a subscription (see previous post for more details).  As soon as 24-hours after the paywall was erected, users found ways to get around the it.

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• A user in Canada named David Hayes created an applications, "NYClean."  It works by dragging the NYClean bookmark to the toolbar of your browser.  Anytime you are on the Times website and are blocked, click it.  You will be able to read the article as you were before the paywall was put into place.
• The paywall does not work on Twitter and other social media sites.  If you click on an link that was posted to an account, it does not count against your 20 free articles. There are feeds such as @timeswiretap and @freeNYTimes that constantly tweet recent articles as they are posted.
• Mashable reported two of their readers Dmitry Beniaminov and Yuri Victor discovered that if readers remove "?gwh=numbers" from the URL, this will let readers continue reading.  They also discovered if readers clear their browser caches or switch browsers once they hit 20 articles, this will also solve the problem.
• According to Newspaper Death Watch, the Times prevents readers from reading more than 20 articles a month with a Javascript overlay.  This means the article is visible in the background with the pop-up asking the reader to subscribe in front of it.  Many browsers block Javascript by default, and the NYTClean also takes care of the HTML which overrides the Javascript.

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There are many different views about the paywall.  The Times is supporting their plan, confident in their prices and the idea.  Times writer David Carr wrote, "People, real actual people, went and reported that information, some of it at personal peril and certainly at giganitc institutional expense.  So the Times is turning toward its customers to bear some of the cost.  The Times is hardly alone: AFP, Reuters, The Associated Press, Dow Jones, the BBC and NPR are all part of a muscular journalistic ecosystem."  He admits his bias since he does write for the Times, but he writes in support of the cost and his company.

There are also other professionals who agree with the Times.  Larry Kramer wrote why he will pay the subscription fee, "I want my NY Times information frequently and easily and I will do what it takes, including paying for it, to make sure I get full access to everything produced by the 1100 journalists who work there...In the case of the Times, the content has already prove its value to me over the many years I have consumed it, in print and on line.  I know I want it and I know I need it.  I may have loved getting it for free online over the years, but I also know how good it is and that it has value to me."

However, not everyone is as positive as Carr and Kramer.  Steve Outing, a blogger, said he was disappointed in the paywall and he believes it is a bad move.  "I hope someone from the NY Times management will respond to my criticims.  If they do, I expect that the justification for this announced pricing model will be they can't do harm to the newspaper product.  I guess that's the way it is.  But in my view, this over-priced metered-paywall mistaken strategy puts the "Gray Lady" a step closer to the grave rather than getting a chance at a new life."  The Onion, a parody news source, also got their word in on the subject with an article titled, "NYTimes.com's Plan to Charge People Money For Consuming Goods, Services Called Bold Business Move."

I can see the pros and cons of the subscription service.  We will need to wait and see if readers use the methods to get around the fees or if they are willing to pay for a news source they enjoy reading.

Do you think the subscription will work out for the Times, or do you think it will negatively affect their business?

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