One of our national newspapers, The Globe & Mail ran an article this morning in their business section about the NY Times: N.Y. Times unveils pay wall: Canada first. The author wasn't convinced it was a viable model.

Khoi Vinh, a former Times employee, has some interesting thoughts posted. Considering what he knows about the company, technology, and media consumption, I wish he'd brought more concrete ideas to the table about how the Times could have better utilized their resources. Still, his overall points about the opportunity cost of what the Times has done are good.

http://www.subtraction.com/2011/03/1...l-really-costs

Interesting, particularly from an insider. Right on too about wasting money (reported to be $40M) developing such a complex model. As Vinh says, folks will not get it, except this: You gotta pay to read the NYTimes. That free with limits exists will go over their heads; folks want the news, not a hassle. Further, the pricing is weird: $15 for web and smartphone, $20 for web and iPad, $35 for all digital, i.e., WWW + Phone is 15, WWW + iPad is 20 (but no Phone?), and WWW + iPad + Phone is 35 -- doesn't tally.

One of the British newpapers tried a paywall some time before Murdoch's more recent foray and almost immediately lost readership and advertising revenue. Shortly after that, to their surprise, they lost columnists who, after all, want to be read. Frank Rich, one of the more widely read of NYT's columnists has already left. He didn't implicate the pay wall, but was it a factor?

Digital Subscription Prices Visualized (aka The New York Times Is Delusional). The title says it all. See the link to the blog for the data the chart shows.

No doubt, the pricing structures the Times is planning have room for improvement. The not-so-good part is the illogical aspects of the prices, but I think the really bad part is the fact that the options aren't easily grasped.

While the Times can always revise this, that comes with the added issue of having to re-educate potential consumers about what is offered. Ideally, they'd use the advance rollout in Canada like a trial balloon and make adjustments based on the early feedback, before the plans appear elsewhere. Unfortunately, I don't get the impression such action may occur as the Times appears to see its strategies as having no room for improvement.

Viewed in that graphic, you have to wonder how on earth they came up with those prices.

Based on my own experiences with companies that look to introduce a new revenue source, I'd guess the Times fell subject to any number of the following:

• An emphasis on its goals without consideration for the customer experience
• Attempts to achieve early initial revenue forecasts rather than a model that is designed for adaptability and growth
• A lack of clear leadership and, instead, an over-reliance on committees which inherently lead to compromises
• Relatedly, an attempt to please all interests, whether those in-house, external clients, existing print customers, and potential online customers; try to please everyone and the odds go up you please no one
• Still related to a lack of individual leadership, there's often self-propagating effects from insular behavior; ideas within companies tend to take hold and unless there is a powerful individual who can change things, ideas become entrenched and intractable even when they lack value
• An insufficient number of powerful voices who are experts in the new business venture (here, online sales)
• Bad advice; really, I'd be curious to know who provided consulting on this, whether strategically, market research, etc., and what recommendations were given to the Times

Wow, NaOH; that's an impressive list (I numbered it) several of which mirror my own experience as an engineering consultant (obviously not number 7, though). In #1, for example, the same applies if you change the word "customer" to "user" or "operator". #2 can be summarized as "penny wise & pound foolish". #3 is extremely frustrating for a consultant. Committee members spend most of their time worrying about how to avoid any blame for a failure. #4 is always true and reflects a failure to recognize the exact nature of the problem. #5 is Microsoft to a "T". #6 Or the failure to heed the expert deeming other factors more important. I agree with your #7 -- how did they spend $42M for this (if that's not apocryphal).

Number 7 has what I guess may be called an inverse corollary. Namely, that any of points 1-6 often defeat good advice. You basically hit on this when you mentioned "the failure to heed the expert deeming other factors more important."

And #6 has a corollary of its own. In my experience, good advice can be ignored if it contradicts an inside expert with clout. I've had that happen to me twice and had the great pleasure in both cases of being called back to fix the in-house solution. It must happen to software guys all the time.

Agreed on the inverse corollary to #6. I thought I was capturing your idea in #5 describing how internal ideas can be self-propagating, but my quickly written list lacked the nuance of your point.

Not saying this absolves the Times pay wall of its shortcomings, but ideas like this one suggest they are trying to thoughtfully use their strengths to provide added value to subscribers. Companies with appealing products/services but with a value proposition which gives consumers pause can often overcome those consumer questions with add-on benefits like this.

Not a high-quality article here, but the indications after one year are that the NY Times pay wall has done well so far.

Much better than anyone expected (except possibly the Times staff). They've done so well, in fact, that they have just announced that the previous 20 free rides will soon be reduced to 10 per month. Still, given the porosity of their paywall (i.e., the ease of circumventing it), the casual reader will probably still not sign up -- I won't. It's still too expensive. I subscribe to the crossword puzzle, but that's all.

It's worth pointing out something about the Murdoch paywall for THE Times: Lots of people have been boycotting News International because of the news coming out about how their journalists were up to their arses in corruption and law-breaking.
So it may not be the best example of "this is what happens when you have a paywall". There are lots of other factors.

I'm not certain how much the ease of circumventing the paywall matters because I don't get the sense from most people I see working with computers that they're willing to take extra steps for content. Generally, people just want to be able to go to a site (or Google), and click a link, and the methods for getting around the paywall, while not hard, are beyond what most people seem willing to do.

Beyond that, I wonder if the current setup is going to mislead the Times. The paywall has actually helped with print subscriptions, so I could see how the Times may be deceiving itself with that bigger revenue stream. The print-revenue well seems destined to run dry, though pinpointing when is the hard part. Then again, I can also see how they might be ahead of others in the long run from people accustomed to the idea of paying for content, in which case folks might rationalize paying for only the Times online with something like, "Well, I'm paying for the same content I used to buy, but now it's only online."

Obviously, it's a complex situation that's hard to assess, even sitting here on the outside like we are.

I wish there were data which would enable us to properly understand the subscriber/readership effects of those scandals.

Web and digital subscriptions for the NY Times and International Herald Tribune have reached 699,000.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/08/02...edia&seid=auto