The New York Times pay scheme: it might actually work

The New York Times has come out with one more scheme to get readers to pay for content, an effort which is only the latest in a long line of failed schemes. But this one might actually work because it is not a pay wall, exactly. Unlike The Times, which doesn’t let non-paying riff-raff past the front page (and which Clay Shirky noted changed it from a newspaper to a newsletter), the NYTimes set up a porous transition zone for readers, who will only get charged if they read over 20 articles a month, and don’t get charged for referrals from Facebook or websites like this one. This is less like a palisade wall and more like defense-in-depth.

However, the pricing is a little funny. For one thing, I think they would have been better off letting people read at least 30 articles a month. One per day has a nice ring, and the NYTimes can always tighten up later. Making money is nice, but let’s charge only your most avid readers (which includes me) until people get used to the idea. Also, they are charging $15 for web access, $20 for web and ipad access, and $35 for web, ipad and iphone access. That’s just weird. If it does not imply that ipad access is worth $5 (due to the economics of bundling) it does imply that iphone access is worth $15 (I read it on the iPhone sometimes and believe me, the NYTimes app is not that great).

But it might work. I would like to see them be even more creative in how they think about publishing and economics, but this is a start.

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