I noted that New York Times is reducing the number of articles available to non-subscribers to 10 per month (from 20). An 11th article is supposed to result in hitting the paywall. But anyone who downloads the free Google Chrome browser can just right-click to open an article in “incognito” mode. Given that an unlimited number of articles are available for free simply by choosing incognito mode in the popular Chrome browser, why are 450,000 people paying them $250 per year (source)? Do subscribers (I’m not one of them) see fewer ads? Fewer interstitial ads? Or is it just that they want to support the newspaper?
41 thoughts on “Nytimes.com paywall and the Google Chrome browser’s incognito mode”
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The NYT’s target demo is “Affluent and Essentially Stupid”. So, however, is the NYT, which is why they still can’t turn a profit in spite of their unique appeal to stupid people with money.
If this data is to be believed, 90% of people don’t know how to use command-f for find; I doubt the number who learn to use incognito mode in Chrome will be substantial enough to harm revenue.
(I think of how none of my non-techie friends have adblock and flashblock installed on their browsers, and, when I use their computers, I’m puzzled by all the whizzy stuff flying across the screen when I’m trying to read something.)
I want to support the newspaper, which I also like reading on my iPad. I like a well written newspaper and they won’t be able to continue unless readers support the paper.
A non trivial percentage of the subscribers are probably unaware that the paywall is easy to get around.
How about, it’s the honest thing to do? That you’d want to support a service you cherish by paying for the price they ask for? (Btw, there are a variety of offers, so I doubt most subscribers are paying the full price.)
I want to support the newspaper. (Related: I am a stupid person with money, which also explains the airplane ownership.)
Folks who say that there are 450,000 people (or a good fraction thereof) out there who simply wish to support the newspaper: Why weren’t these 450,000 people sending cash to the NYT before the paywall was established? Folks who wanted to support the NYT prior to the pay wall could have done so by buying little ads, e.g., “Joe and Linda want to congratulate NYT CEO Janet Robinson” (see http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-09/new-york-times-s-robinson-s-exit-package-tops-23-million.html for a bit of background on this executive, to whom the NYT shareholders made a $23.7 million donation on her last day of work).
There is similar functionality in both IE (In Private, added in IE 8) and Firefox (private browsing, added in 3.1) as well.
Although joecanuck is probably right, I’m with David Stewart and Colin. I pay for the Times. I also give money to my public radio station. It’s both the right thing to do, and it makes the country a little better.
If you can claim that working around whatever system is in place is not in fact stealing, you can rest soundly knowing that the world is yours – just ask Nelson W. Aldrich.
I am computer-savvy enough to Bittorrent any movie, TV show or CD that I wish. Yet I still prefer to consume much of my content legally by paying for it: Especially if the legal option is easy to access.
I would suggest that a reasonable number of subscribers are willing to pay the fee to ethically access the content on any and all devices. Some people don’t sell their principles for $20/month.
Oh… by the way: You can accomplish the same thing in Internet Explorer 8 and higher by using “InPrivate” mode: Ctrl-Shift-P will pop up a separate browser window that achieves the same effect.
Just because you can circumvent the restriction doesn’t make it okay to do so. The intention of NYT is quite clear: read 20 (now 10) articles per month for free and pay us for the rest.
If you buy a newspaper out of am vending machine (do they still have those?) do you insert your coins and the take ten copies of the paper just because it is easy to do?
John, Tom: I’m not convinced by the argument that accessing 21 articles would be perceived as stealing by most people. A person who accepts all cookies and has a computer at work, a computer at home, a tablet, and a mobile phone, for example, would have been able to access at least 80 articles (since each device would be cookied separately). A person who had just one laptop, though, would be able to access only 20. Did the person with the three extra devices steal 60 articles? Does a person become unethical if he or she fails to monitor his or her consumption of NYT articles and goes beyond “the intention of NYT”?
Why is it that people feel everything on the internet must be free? Don’t you want the New York Times to stay in business? No one gave a second thought plopping down fifty cents, one dollar, a $1.50 for a paper version of the newspaper at the newsstand every single day. Now we have a list here of ways to steal the Times. Same content, just different media folks. Why is stealing OK now that the media is bits not pulp? My most honest friends think nothing of borrowing CDs and DVDs from the library and ripping them to their computers and playing them over and over? Don’t you think reporters, editors, film makers, musicians ought to be paid? I don’t get it. I pay for the New York Times because I want them to continue to stay in business, and I want a quality product.
This is interesting because there are many ways to get around the paywall
and according to this ABC news story the Times is perfectly OK with that fact.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/paywall-york-times-readers-spot-holes-read-free/story?id=13248395
quoted from article
“Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times, said that not only is the paper well aware of the “holes” in its wall, but the holes have been left open intentionally.
“We have designed our digital subscription policy with the idea that we want it to have a porous wall. It is not a paywall in the typical sense of the word,” she said. “We knew from the beginning that there would be people who would try to get around.”
Are they of the mind that it is OK for some to circumvent the wall because they still get the exposure?
I thought the quote was interesting.
I posted the above on theverge.com tech site and not everyone agreed with me.
I think it is a question of intent. If you use different devices to access NYT and the cookies count separately that is okay in my book. If you are deliberately resetting cookies or use technology to specifically get around the payment system that is more dubious.
Don’t doubt for a second that the NYT could set up a stricter access control that would require you to have a password for access and do away with these work-a-rounds.
They are trying to leave access as unrestricted as possible while surviving finacially. The more of us play ball, the higher the chances that they will stick around and provide us with news and commentaries.
It sounds like we’re getting into a game of Loki’s Wager, where since you can’t really define the bright line of stealing, it must not be stealing.
When I get the NYT’s paywall pop-up, I close the window and do something else.
I got a “Sunday only” subscription for home delivery because
1) I wanted to support the paper
2) I really only have time on Sundays to sit and read, and it is nice to browse it throughout the week
3) It got me full access on my digital devices (phone, tablet, browser at work) which I use whenever/wherever I wanted the rest of the time
I feel it is a fair deal. FWIW, I also give money to support my local PBS station since I listen to it a lot.
Folks: I did not mean to criticize those who subscribe (I might well have been among them if I did not prefer to spend time reading books and magazines such as New Yorker (if I were a powerful person in Washington, D.C. or a voter in a swing state, I would try to keep up with the news because there might be something that I could do to influence the outcome)). I just wanted to understand the motivation. It does seem as though the main motivation among folks commenting is a desire to support the New York Times company. So that leaves open the question of why there weren’t more people supporting the New York Times company via donations or vanity ads before the paywall went up. Was the company’s need for donations not apparent prior to the paywall? Was it too cumbersome to send them money?
Regarding the accusation of stealing… I’m not sure that an analogy to music or video files is apt. The Google Chrome user who is protecting his or her privacy (from advertisers) via the incognito mode and ends up reading 25 articles per month is viewing advertisements and may be generating additional pay-per-click revenue for the New York Times company (this is presumably one reason why they allow some access by non-subscribers; they don’t want to lose their advertising base). I think it would be more accurate to call that user a “customer” than a “thief”.
Is there some reason you are promoting the Chrome browser over others in a post that has nothing to do with that particular browser? Both IE and Firefox have modes that operate similarly to “incognito”. IE calls it “In Private”. I do not know what Firefox calls theirs.
Boo: I did not mean to promote Chrome, though I do like it! A cousin’s husband was ridiculously grateful to me when I installed it on his Netbook, which had previously been too sluggish to be useful (I also removed his anti-virus software and some other stuff that was slowing down the poor overburdened little memory-starved machine).
@Rob: It’s not stealing. Nobody broke in to anything. They are simply using the tools given to them, in this particular instance. And NYT agreed to this because they voluntarily put their content on the publicly accessible internet, with the purpose of having people view that content using industry-standard publicly available tools. You don’t honestly think NYT doesn’t have smart IT people do you?
Phil, before the paywall went up it wasn’t apparent that the NYT needed subscriptions to be viable. That is, digital subscriptions weren’t a part of the exchange between the consumer and producer on the Internet. If they had a membership drive like PBS or a PayPal button (and made it clear they needed support), then I probably would have supported them that way then. Vanity ads are just for a specific purpose; you don’t think of them primarily as a means to show your support for the Times. Put another away, the NYT is not like a symphony that you support by giving donations. Sure, both offer services, but the “rules” are well-established that for symphonies, ticket sales make up only a small part of their income and they depend on the support of patrons in the community. For the Times, the rules are to to show your support by paying for the product, like most other businesses. So I oblige and pay for a subscription.
It’s pretty easy to get a half price deal if you call them on the phone and tell them you’re thinking of canceling your subscription.
I really don’t mind the idea of paying for an online subscription, but the regular price is a little high.
Paul: The regular price is “a little high”? If there is so much goodwill out there that people are willing to give money to support the NYT, shouldn’t the price actually be higher? Despite paying executives handsomely, it seems as though the NYT shareholders suffered from a lot of money left on the table during the past decade or so. Many people, in addition to viewing and clicking on advertisements, were apparently willing to provide additional money voluntarily, but the management team did not build any mechanism for them to do so.
The most interesting thing I read was this reader comment:
“Don’t you want the New York Times to stay in business?”
The answer to this would be NO. Of course not. The sooner the go out of business, the better.
All Libs: I don’t think there is any chance of an organization with billions of dollars in advertising revenue going out of business. If they had no revenue from subscriptions they would presumably have to cut some expenses (e.g., paying an executive $20 million as she walked out the door, having cut shareholder value by 80 percent during her time at the helm), but the enterprise would still have tremendous value.
Phil: The subscription makes it easy to support the nytimes. That is why eople weren’t just mailing checks. That’s also why PBS has fund raising drives. So do charities.
If some time goes by without any further posts from Phil, we can assume that the Justice Department has declared him an Enemy Combatant at the request of the New York Times, and sent him to Guantanamo for violating the DMCA by inappropriately discussing and promoting the circumvention of a digital protective mechanism.
I think we can all agree (or at least the RIAA and the MPAA would agree, since they bought the DMCA fair and square and have the sole authority to enforce it as they see fit) that violating the DMCA is a form of terrorism. It’s the same way that someone who exploits a well-known and possibly intentional weakness in a paywall is guilty of larceny and is asking to be punished as severely as possible for each offense. There can be no possible argument against that.
If media conglomerates can’t use draconian Wartime powers to punish thieves and criminals, they might as well surrender to pirates and terrorists and stop producing the content we all want, even if we’re not willing to pay the excessive price they set for it. Anything less than Zero Tolerance is anarchy.
“All Libs” beat me to it! The main reason NY Times deserves to perish is its abuse of government power:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-06-18/news/the-paper-of-wreckage/
A fascinating discussion.
The print-era model of the news business was never simply “readers pay for content;” readers have never really paid for content. It was more like: overhead and content cost W. Printing and distribution cost X. Advertisers pay Y. Readers pay Z. I believe Y>>Z for most general-readership newspapers — and of course even free papers can be profitable so Z might even be zero. Profit=(Y+Z)-(W+X). But in a digital age, X should be dramatically lower. So as long as advertisers continue to pay Y, it is not at all clear that Z has to be greater than zero. One might even suspect that with near-zero marginal distribution cost, free readership would be so high that advertisers should be willing to pay even *more* than in the old days. But of course the problem is that the newspapers no longer have a monopoly on local advertising (Craigslist, anyone?) so they can’t soak classified advertisers any more. There doesn’t seem to be any good solution here: readers never did pay enough to produce a full daily paper’s worth of content and it’s doubtful they ever will.
The business model for the NY times is broken.
From recent events, the bit ‘the NYT shareholders suffered from a lot of money left on the table during the past decade or so’ doesn’t make any sense. The executive compensation is part of U.S corporate insanity, but that they have money in the coffers and their advertising revenue can sustain the operation ? I find it doubtful.
Has anyone looked over the NY times financials lately ? They secured a loan not to long ago from one of the biggest sharks in the world, a $250 million loan at 14% ! (now payed back) ( http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/carlos-slim-adds-to-stake-in-times-company/# ).
Does this sound like a financially sound company ? Only able to get 14% loan. The U.S government is getting loans at near 0% now. How come no large bank didn’t take the risk at 5% or even 10% ?
‘Tremendous value’ I’m not sure of what kind. If they provided ‘tremendous financial value’ they wouldn’t have trouble issuing corporate bonds at the going 3%-5% rate, not getting loans from a monopolist tycoon at 14%.
To everyone who is saying this is stealing or is unethical, here is an example for you. How different is this to if I walk into the Dr. office and pickup the paper and read it just like many before and after me? How about when you walk into a library and pickup NYT to read it? Or the small copies of NYT that get sent to our men/women in uniform for all to read and share?
NYT has the tools, technology and the law to enforce their policy, but it’s in their advantage not to otherwise they will lose their readership and thus their add revenue. Advertisers don’t care much about the number of paid subscribers, as long as there is a huge number of subscribers. This is why Facebook and Google are doing well.
(I hit ‘post’ before I finished my last post)
For NYT, having paid subscribers is a small extra revenue generated off folks who want to be “honest”; NYT is taking advantage of those folks for being “honest” (sorry if you feel otherwise and you are a subscriber and reading this post.)
There is a small benefit to being a subscriber: you can make comments to articles easier, also content is steered toward your preferences (at least I think that is a benefit?)
If I thought the NYTimes was in danger of collapsing, I would be more likely to support them financially. But their pricing is about 4x what I would want to pay (they want 3.75 per week). Given the ease of browsing, I might view a dozen papers now – WSJ, WaPo, LA times, something in Chicago, Freep, etc. Paying $20 per month to all of them isn’t likely.
When I used to hit the 20 article limit (rarely happened), I would just switch to a different browser, or clear cookies, or private browsing, or a different device. Between aging (retirement looms, retirement accounts indicate a lower income lifestyle approaching) and the economic collapse, I have sharply reduced any luxury spending. I might buy a $1.75 coffee once per week now, used to be several times per week and a few of those might have been the $4 version.
I pay the NY Times because:
1- other family members prefer the print edition. I haven’t looked it in weeks. Digital is free when you have print.
2- By averaging 140 articles per month the NY Times personalization engine knows me pretty well and consistently find articles I want to read. It’s the first place I turn after a quick scan of the headlines.
3- Because this automated curation is useful, I want them to stay in business. Not because they’ve been around forever.
4- Because they’ve been around forever, I use the archives about once a month. It’s an incredibly valuable trove. I found my parents wedding announcement, and grandparents death notices.
5- when I travel, I use the app to grab several days of articles to read offline.
I probably count as a subscriber, but it isn’t because I send them money — my mother gets the print edition and this gives her 2 free subscriptions to the online edition, which my sister and I use.
I suspect a lot of those 450,000 people are in some similar situation.
Folks…newspapers make their money through advertising, not subscribers. I worked for one for years.
That’s why they’re aware of these “back doors” and allow them to exist.
“I noted that New York Times is reducing the number of articles available to non-subscribers to 10 per month (from 20).”
Hilarious. This is analogous to a hideous old bat screeching that she now refuses to date men who make less than $1 million annually, whereas in reality you couldn’t pay any sane guys to date her.