In an interesting move, New York Times today removed its online access fee to all of its editorial.
The newspaper had been charging $49.95 a year for access for the last two years. It has now dropped that in favor of open access, and has included its archives from 1855 to 1922, and 1987 to present. there is a fee for some material from 1923 to 1986.
What has caused this? It seems that the publication is finally starting to monetize its site, which apparently gets 13 million unique readers a month.
"What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue."
This affects us how? Access to more historical data, and current articles. Which is always good from such a prestigious source. But what about subscription-only industry publications that rely on subsciber money...my very own CADCAMnet (of which I am a part owner) relates to this.
CADCAMNet has maintained an absolute ad-free environment. One which we continue to believe has value for readers. NYT has not. I believe that even with a paid subscription, advertising banners were still served...and even more so now. But is there a value to adverising-free space? And if so, what value can be put on it?
I am curious what people think
rach
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