In a somewhat bold move, it appears that the New York Times has severely cut down on what content can be freely accessed via their website, www.nytimes.com. For quite a while, older content required a subscription or payment, but a free registration allowed access to much of their current content.
Today I made my daily visit to NY Times website to find that this was no longer possible. The very content that I had come to treasure from the Times - their Op-Ed Columnists - was now off limits to my mooching eyes. They certainly have every right to charge for this content, but they can also certainly expect a marked decline in online readership.
They are obviously banking on an expectation that the decline in readership online will not result in a loss of ad revenue greater than the revenue produced from the subscription service. I'm somewhat dubious that this will be the case. People are simply not yet willing to consider information online to be something worth paying for. Subscription services for content have again and again proved unsuccesful.
On the positive side, the subscription is not (as many others have been) terribly expensive. $7.95 a month or $49.95 isn't outrageous, but it's enough of a barrier to keep this graduate student from visiting their website on the daily basis that I used to. Hopefully this will prove to be a pilot that ultimately fails - as I do like my access to the Times online. If this is not the case and this "$$$ firewall" is here to stay, I will simply have to find other news sources. Any suggestions?