Are you an online New York Times reader who’s been enjoying those 20 free articles each month? Better get those page views in soon, because the newspaper is tightening the gates around its paywall, slashing the freebies to a mere 10 articles a month starting next month.
The New York Times Company has announced plans to tighten the noose around its NYTimes.com pay gate, cutting the number of articles for free users from 20 to 10 each month in an effort to beef up its digital subscriptions, which the company now pegs at 454,000 paying users as of Sunday, March 18.
“The Times also announced that beginning in April it would be moving the pay gate at NYTimes.com to 10 free articles a month from 20,” the press release reads. “With this change, The Times’s digital subscription plan will continue to allow for access to a generous amount of free content on the Web site and across multiple digital platforms.”
“Last year was a transformative one for The Times as we began to charge for digital access to our content,” explained The New York Times Company chairman and CEO Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. “Today, close to a half million people are now paying for digital content from The Times and the IHT. We knew that readers placed a high value on our journalism, and we anticipated they would respond positively to our digital subscription packages. Our commitment to all of our subscribers, both print and digital, is that we will continue to invest in and evolve our journalism and our products, and we will remain a source of trustworthy news, information and high-quality opinion for many years to come.”
The news for NYT moochers isn’t all bad -- access to the Top News section will remain free from smartphone and tablet apps, and “links from e-mail, search, blogs and social media will continue to be able to access those individual articles, even if they have reached their reading limit.”
To celebrate the first anniversary of their digital subscriptions, The New York Times is allowing existing subscribers to gift a friend or family member a free 12-week subscription -- to both print and digital -- absolutely free. So, hey, you guys are our friends, right? Any of you happen to subscribe to the NYT? Just curious…
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Old Unix Guy
March 20, 2012 at 12:33pm
I am not a digital subscriber to the NYT and I read as many articles online as I want. I've even e-mailed NYT and told them what I do. There is no reason to pay to read there articles online.
Once you hit their "limit" you can - if you use Safari - simply hit the reader button and the article will come up. Alternatively, once you hit the "limit" you can simply go into your preferences and delete any caches / cookies relating to NYT and keep on going.
