Or
How, After More Than a Decade, The Times Still Doesn’t Get The Internet
Photo by Graham Biggs
After years of talk, the New York Times finally released details regarding their new pay wall yesterday. Despite receiving mixed reviews, I am failing to see how anyone could see the new Times plan as anything but a bad idea.
First, a little background. The New York Times has attempted a paywall before – and it failed miserably. So have other newspapers, and with the exception of publications that exist in specialized verticals (financials), no paywall has ever really survived. One noted paywall, the Long Island daily Newsday actually saw a mere 35 paying subscribers in its three month trial.
Granted, the new Times Paywall is less a wall and more a Byzantine collection of rules and exceptions that say if and when you can read a Times article.
Everyone gets 20 free articles a month. Links from social media sources and blogs and some search engines will be able to read the article regardless of how many other articles have been read. And readers will always have access to the front page of the site, front page of the sections and some of all the blogs and most of some of them.
Walls have it easy. The Times is putting a crap shoot and a curb between you and the content you want to read.
What’s worse is that there are so many loopholes that anyone with a passing interest in reading any article on the Times website really can. Which leaves paying for access to the website really as more of a punishment for being a less savvy internet user than something that bestows real value.
Of course, in its pricing scheme the all but admits that the website is a free bonus. How so? Well, there’s no way to buy access just to the website. You have to either pay $15 for a four week subscription to the website and the smartphone app, $20 for access to the website and the iPad app, or $35 for access to the web, smartphone and iPad app. The math behind that is crazy, but thankfully Wired already did it.
If A + B = $15 and A + C = $20 and A + B + C = $35, what does A equal?
That answer is 0.
Yes, the New York Times is saying that access to their website is essentially a giveaway value add, but you can’t have that value unless you’re a paying customer. At least not all the time. Well, you can have access when they feel like it.
Of course, nobody is saying that the Times website is worthless, least of all the advertisers. Numbers I’m seeing is that the site took in $300 million last year from ad impressions alone. But, the new pricing and access scheme concocted by the wizards at the Times feels oddly punitive especially when we consider the competitive landscape of publishing news online.
The issue facing the New York Times seems to be multifaceted, and the new paywall will do little to solve it. In fact, if the Times earns back the $40 million paywall investment within the next two years, I will be shocked.
Let’s look at the issue. First, the New York Times is not merely competing on a city or regional level. Hell, they’re not even competing on a national level. They are an international publication and they know this, as the equally vaunted and lauded paywall took effect today in Canada with the rest of world schedule to start on the 28th of this month.
Second, the New York Times is not just competing with other newspapers. News is coming from more and more spaces – all of the newspapers of the world, plus all of the television websites, the vertical websites, blogs, and the recently emerging trend of real time, unedited broadcasts from reporters on location via social networks.
Put these two together and you begin to get the picture of the modern media landscape, people have an abundance of news sources to pull from. The sea of a million periodicals allows a rapid comparing and contrasting of news that puts emphasis on loyalty to story rather than loyalty to brand.
In order to succeed online, the Times needs to stop thinking about coping with the new system while punishing those who play by the old rules and instead move to the golden rule of selling: make people want to give you money.
I know, it sounds simple. But if it were, every product would be a must have. However, since I’ve already come this far, here are just a few suggestions for how to turn the experience behind the paywall into something actually worth paying for.
First, get rid of the freaking ads. I know, newspapers have never been about selling copies and have always survived by amassing an audience and then selling that audience’s attention to advertisers. But, seriously, if I’m paying to be there, I don’t want my experience muddied up by ads.
Second, embrace your subscribers by allowing them to be heard. This is not just an argument for comments, or for restricting commenting to merely paying subscribers. This is an argument for a second commenting system that is restricted to paying customers. Reward these users by not having them mix with the aggressive and argumentative landscape of the public comments system. Allow commenters to interact with each other. And the kicker? Require your staff to participate in the premium comments.
Third, provide access. I don’t mean the current model of access which is determined on a device-by-device basis. That’s a bastardization of infinite supply. I mean real access. Access to reporters. Access to notes on an article and background information. Access to photos that were taken but not used. These are unique items that are often of scarce supply and provide a real value to readers and differentiate the Times website from the millions of others out there.
What’s more, these don’t have to all be included in one plan, they could be rolled out a la carte and at multiple levels. Level one gets you an advertising free Times experience. Level two removes adds and access to the gated community. Level three allows for communication with reporters and peels back the curtain on the story. Hell, level 15 could involve a monthly beer with the editor.
Put bluntly, the Times is selling the wrong thing. They’re trying to get people to pay for infinite and largely fungible content instead of paying for scarce commodities like access and privilege. And that is a damn foolish way to blow $40 million.
