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Free The New York Times
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Online readers of The New York Times have never really been getting the
full story. Not only do you need to register to access most articles, but
archives and many op-ed columns can only be accessed by forking over actual
cash through the TimesSelect program. At least part of this is set to change,
however, as the Times plans to drop some payment requirements according to their competition over at the
New York Post.
TimesSelect offerings circa 2007. Or, what you
can get for $8.95 a month that you can also get for free.
It seems remarkable that an institution as progressive as the New York Times, whose
electronic content is otherwise exceptional, is just coming to terms with the naked
reality of the information era. The value of content is inversely proportional to the
age of the information. The older something gets, the less we are willing to pay for it.
Newspapers, who thrive on fresh stories and get used for fish wrapping and box stuffing
within a week, ought to understand this more fundamentally than anyone else. Of course
you can't really charge money for this stuff. Subscriptions to periodicals have never
been a major source of a revenue, just been used to prove to advertisers that individual readers
are marginally serious.
The NYT event helps demonstrate another obvious fact: people aren't really willing to pay
for information, but they will grudgingly accept that they have to pay for some medium. Sure,
you can buy a CD if you absolutely must get the song, or you can wait to hear it on the radio
for free. You can fork over $29.99 at the airport gift shop for Harry Potter and the Unending
Vortex of Pages, or get it at no cost at your local library. The web is just another distribution
medium---one that is so cheap and plentiful almost nobody is going to be willing to pay a surcharge
on top. Sorry, New York Times.
Links:
- If Information Wants to Be Free...
- Information Freedom @ Wikipedia
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