Comments on: Paying to Read the New York Times?

By: B. Minich

B. Minich — Tue, 19 Jan 2025 01:07:05 +0000

As a techie, this news reached me in a different manner:

“The NYT is coming up with subscription options, and mentioned an announcement for mobile content options in about a week. Translation: APPLE TABLET STUFF!!!”

Basically, the idea is that the Tablet from Steve’s Own Hand is going to load media in a way that makes sense on mobile devices.

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By: Leonard

Leonard — Mon, 18 Jan 2025 16:36:01 +0000

You would think that the NYT would have learned its lesson from the last failure. The only way I can see it being reasonable and viable (especially a second time) is if paying for access also measurably reduces or eliminates the amount of advertising served with the NYT’s content. (You want me to pay for the privilege of being advertised at? No thanks.) Problem is, that’s probably not in the offing and when you take freely available technology into account, it wouldn’t be worth the cost anyway.

As for “almost” worthless, I don’t hedge like that about the local purveyors of drivel. The Dayton Daily News used to be Cox News’ flagship paper, but they bailed on that years ago when they made the Atlanta Journal-Constitution their primary focus. Now the DDN is little more than an AP rag with poor columnists and a delusional editorial board which mistakenly believes it has some influence in this town. The local TV news is even worse: 3 competing channels of sentimental treacle, inconsequential fluff, GBH and ridiculous attempts to localize big news stories (so-and-so’s cousin’s half-brother was at the scene, so let’s go live with his next-door neighbor!), all vying to see which of them can insult your intelligence the most.

When you can get the news (via RSS) directly from the same wire services the papers and TV do (AP, Reuters, UPI etc) and all you’re missing is the syndicated columnists and “Dear Abby,” why bother with the local yokels at all?

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By: Steven L. Taylor

Steven L. Taylor — Mon, 18 Jan 2025 04:25:04 +0000

I have become so thoroughly a laptop guy, that I do not miss an actual paper. The fact that the local paper is almost worthless hastened the move, no doubt.

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By: Ratoe

Ratoe — Mon, 18 Jan 2025 04:02:40 +0000

I guess I’m old school. I simply can’t wake up in the morning without reading an actual newspaper. I’ve been subscribing to the NY Times and FT for years and I rarely go to their websites.

I used to also subscribe to the WSJ. Ever since I let the subscription elapse around the time Murdoch bought it, I have never gone to their website. (My dropping the WSJ had nothing to do with Murdoch–it was just hard to justify THREE papers!)

With the WSJ there were a couple of columns I read religiously (Eric Felten’s Saturday one on cocktails), but I’ve never even thought about trying to find them online!

I wonder if the e-book reader phenomenon might help some papers in the long run. I could imagine a decent e-reader that gets sent wirelessly the paper each morning.

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