Ah. The punchline comes in the last paragraph. Only a shareholder could rationalize this as a good move for the company and be mystified as to why the paywall didn't work the first time.
Did you read something besides the word "shareholder" or did that kick off your entire set of assumptions about the post and my opinions?
I hold stock in the New York Times because I love newspapers, and have long enjoyed that paper, and want it to succeed in the long run. I don't care if it makes a profit or not, actually. I never have cared about that. I like spreading out the paper copy sometimes (I have to drive a ways to get one) and thinking "Yep, you are my paper!" even on the days when it seriously ticks me off. Holding the stock is just another way of sticking close to a paper I have known ever since I learned to read.
The New York Times creates content of value and needs to put a proper price on it. That price is not zero. It might be a price that temporarily causes drops in revenue when sales at various prices for various types of subscriptions plus revenues from advertising are totted up. So what, is what I say. Let the thing play out for awhile and I believe that will result in better quality and higher readership volume. And that is why I said that for my money the shareholders can lump it or leave if they don't like the fact that the Times is going to try again with a pricing plan. Shareholding is about risk. This is a reasonable risk, but only if the shareholders are reasonable, which any more seems to be a crapshoot for any publicly held corporation.
I say kudos to the Times for having the courage to get out there and try again to price its content. Not to do so is to continue to stay beholden to the whole rotten concept of most clicks and lowest common denominator content designed to draw those clicks. If you are digging a bottomless pit, how will you know when you get there? That is the trap the Times must avoid. It is not a worthy goal for this storied newspaper. The people who care for it know that, and must work towards helping the Times stay focused on how to be able to continue to produce quality content.
Do I expect the Times to make some big profit this quarter or this year from charging us to access the online versions? No. Do I like the idea of shelling out the extra money myself? Not particularly, since I try to live inside a budget and will have to give up something else I only thought I needed. Will I sign up for a plan on March 28th? Yep!
