1. First off, I agree that the performance of the NY Times paywall greatly exceeded my own expectations for it. I was quite harsh in predicting it would be a complete flop. I was wrong. It wasn't a flop. I explore why below.
2. That said, I don't think that it's been nearly as big a "success" as some are making it out to be, and I still think that it wasn't the best play that the NYT could have or should have made -- and it's doubtful that anyone else following in the NYT's footsteps would find similar results. And that's a pretty big problem, because even if you think the NYT's paywall should be judged a "success" it doesn't change the fact that its revenue continues to drop (and not just its print revenue -- digital revenue is struggling too). Perhaps the paywall may have limited the revenue collapse, but it has done little to create a new and sustainable business model.

• It's not really a paywall! This was a point we realized soon after the details were released, when it became clear that the paywall was so porous that no one would ever have to pay. Ever. As we noted, it's really the Emperor's New Paywall, in that it's completely invisible. If you don't want to pay, you just don't use javascript, or you remove the text after the ? at the end of the URL, or you open another browser, or you delete your cookies, or one of the half dozen or so other tricks that means you'll never ever face the paywall. In effect, the NYT's paywall is a donation system made to look like a paywall -- sort of like some museums with their "recommended donations" at the entrance. You never actually have to pay, but many people do out of convenience.
• They don't count links/earned media: This one is big. Since so much traffic comes via links these days, one of the major problems with paywalls is that they hurt this kind of traffic. For example, we try not to link to paywalled sites whenever possible -- but we will link to the NY Times, knowing that they let in any linked traffic, and it doesn't count against your "paywall meter." That at least meant that they weren't killing off important new sources of traffic, unlike many (if not most) other paywalls out there.
• The NY Times smartly figured out a way to get a ton of people signed up for free, to boost their early numbers. They did an ad deal with Lincoln, such that right as the paywall launched, anyone could get a free subscription by test driving a Lincoln. Who knows how many people actually took this up, but it bootstrapped the early numbers, and now everyone completely forgets about this (seriously, it's difficult to find any article that mentions this point any more).
• In the end, it appears that the NY Times is a paper that many people think is indispensable, and because they haven't bothered to look around and find out that you never actually have to pay, a lot of people have just paid up for the hell of it.

• As mentioned, overall results still suck. That's a pretty big deal. While the article claims that new subscriptions have finally started to outpace ad revenue declines, it seems unlikely that this will continue.
• Despite not blocking linked traffic, overall traffic hasn't been good. It's certainly not increasing.
• Proponents of paywalls insist that one key reason for a paywall is that it allows newspapers to charge advertisers more, since they better know their audience and can charge advertisers higher rates. It turns out that this is hogwash, and the NY Times has admitted that the paywall has had no impact on the rates they can charge for advertisements.
• And part of that may be because advertisers often tend to value scale and "mindshare" over targeting. Sure, they all claim to want premium audiences backed by data, but having dealt with way too many advertisers in my life, they always always always eventually go back to the scale question. And a paywall -- even a fake one like the NYT's -- tends to limit your ability to scale.
• And then there's my biggest issue in all of this. It's been entirely based on fooling users into thinking they need to pay, but not about adding more value for the users. As we've argued for years, there are plenty of opportunities to get users to pay, but it has to be about adding additional value beyond the content. It's why we've done things like providing additional scarce value for folks who choose to pay us. We don't block our content with a paywall, but we give people reasons to buy that provide them extra value (and feel free to do so, if you'd like).

Dear Stardock customer,

My name is Brad Wardell. I’m the President & CEO of Stardock. Two years ago, you bought a game from us called Elemental: War of Magic. We had great hopes and ambitions for that game but, in the end, it just wasn’t a very good game.

Elemental was an expensive game. You probably paid $50 or more for it. And you trusted us to deliver to you a good game. $50 is a lot of money and companies have a moral obligation to deliver what they say they’re going to deliver and frankly, Stardock failed to deliver the game we said we were going to deliver…

Its design just wasn’t adequate to make it into the kind of game it should be. So we decided to start over. From scratch. We made a new game called Fallen Enchantress.

So even though it’s been two years, we haven’t forgotten about you. This week, we released Fallen Enchantress. It is a vastly better game and, we believe, lives up to the expectations set for the original Elemental. This game is yours. Free. It’s already been added to your account…

Thank you for being our customers and your patience.

Sincerely,
Brad Wardell
President & CEO
Stardock
bwardell@stardock.com
@draginol http://www.twitter.com/draginol