Online access to content from The New York Times’ columnists and archives will be available for free, effective midnight tonight. The Times’ online content has long been protected by subscription fees.
Richard Pérez-Peña writes that the Times will stop charging for parts of its website in response to the influx of traffic from search engines such as Google and Yahoo!. The Times has judged the revenue potential of online advertising to be greater than that of a subscription model.
Demanding payment for online content is a practice that has long frustrated many Internet users. Even requiring free registrations has been met with opposition, with large communities who frequently pass around stories from subscription-based sites to seek entry through the back door.
The Times’ decision to offer up their online content for free is great news for web surfers who have long been frustrated by the paper’s virtual moat. I am glad to see such an influential part of the journalism world decide to join the rest of us online, realizing that you can’t do digital business for long by fighting the Internet. I can think of a few other industries whose business might benefit by taking a clue from The Times.
