About a month ago I was disturbed to learn that the New York Times was going to start charging for online access. Yes, the NYT is a great newspaper, with terrific content. On my laptop and iPhone I read several stories every day.
But $15 a month? That seemed like a lot. So I resisted signing up for an online subscription plan for as long as possible.
Which turned out to be April 8. That's when I reached my monthly allotment of 20 free stories. I was faced with 22 days of going New York Times cold turkey until May brought me another week or so of gratis access.
That prospect wasn't appealing. So I fed my news junkie addiction and clicked on a digital subscription link. Pleasingly, the damage was only going to be 99 cents for the first four weeks.
Cleverly, that was the introductory price for all three digital options, which ranged from $15 to $35 a month after the 99 cent deal ended. Naturally I chose the best value option, helpfully shown in red.
Now I realize that my credit card is going to be charged $35 on May 6 for All Digital Access even though I don't need the tablet (a.k.a. iPad) access -- just smart phone and computer.
So I need to phone NYT customer service before then.
Just as with the not-so-good-old-days of America On Line (AOL), the Times makes it easy to sign up for a 99 cent introductory offer, but doesn't make it easy to change to a cheaper plan. I couldn't see any way to do that online, even with my vaunted All Digital Access.
Anyway, I've decided that I can suck it up and fork over $15 a month to the New York Times. Like I said in my previous post:
And here's a perspective on the issue that I came across today. I agree with this guy that we need to support genuine newspapers, because otherwise we'll end up only with bloggers like me making up stuff without a factual foundation. Am I still willing to pay $15 every four weeks to support a great newspaper, without which the world would be significantly lessened? Yes, I think so.
Now, let's make that I know so.
I was wondering why I could still click through from the NYT twitter links. I guess I haven't reached my quota of 20 yet.
Posted by: Rebekah | April 13, 2011 at 12:34 PM
Rebekah, I recall reading on the NYT site that clicking on Times stories linked by Google News, Twitter, or such don't count' toward the 20 story monthly limit. So this could be another explanation for why the NYT hasn't demanded that you pay for an online subscription.
Posted by: Blogger Brian | April 13, 2011 at 02:32 PM
Google NYTCLEAN to learn how you can access the NYT site for free.
Posted by: M | April 13, 2011 at 08:05 PM