The media model for profit is not really based on subscribers as much as ad purchases. In fact, the more subscribers you have the better ad dollars you get..so this move is not at all like the example you provide. They are not making widgets!

To use the mechanic analogy, if the dealer will fix it for free under warranty, or your local shop will fix it for $50, will you pay the $50?

Most news sources provide content free to the user with advertisements. Unless the NYT continually has something unique THAT PEOPLE WANT, it won’t work. Talk shows can charge for their downloads, because they are unique. How can NYT expect people to pay for their version of the Obamacare bill, when other sources have beat all angles to death.

No one ever says “I want my car fixed…” they say “I need my car fixed…”.

No one ever says “I need the news…” they say “I want the news…”.

See the difference?

Because someone wants something doesn’t mean they’ll pay for it. Sure they won’t get it, but where does that leave you the newspaper?

“Why are people against paying for things, if you don’t pay they don’t exist. I swear only internet/computer types beleive in that whole open source/freedom thing. If I make something and people want it, then pay up.”

Sorry to disappoint you, but “you” (or the NYT author etc.) don’t “make” the news. You just report it. The facts that you report don’t exist simply because you report them. They exist independently of your reporting. That is why people don’t want to pay for news. They pay for the delivery of news. Before the Internet, you had to rely on the papers, which, material as they were, needed to be paid for and their delivery needed to be paid for. Now, with the Internet, the production and delivery issues disappeared entirely. What’s left is the need for someone to write up the stories. The trick is that there is always someone willing to write up the story for free. Also, there is also always someone able and willing to centralize and present the story that have been written (not necessary the same person/entity). The result is that, no matter what (online) papers do, the old business model is dead… not just dieing but altogether dead. The only problem is that it’s not buried yet. Nevertheless, people has started to notice that the body started to stink some time ago…

Why you see only “Internet types” advocating free/open stuff? Because they understand what I’ve just said. Everybody will get it eventually, but we’re not there yet.

Don’t confuse physical goods with virtual goods. Some people, like, for example, you, seem to think that the lack of physicality of the virtual goods doesn’t differentiate them from physical goods. But that’s not true. I won’t start reiterating through all the arguments why that’s a fallacy but I invite you to look up some of Mike’s old articles on this topic. They should be very enlightening.

“Does your boss at the office not pay you? If you’re a mechanic and someone brings in their car, do you work for free? etc etc”

This is another fallacy. Your boss or your garage client aren’t paying you for a virtual good (like in the case of the NYT articles). They pay you for a service. If they don’t pay, they don’t get the service. That’s different from a virtual good. You can look at it in this way: a service is something done on demand and it has a high probability that is customized to each customer at least a little. On the other hand, a virtual good is something that has been produced already and it is provided to everyone as is. That being said, in the case of a service, the service provider does at least some work for every served client. On the other hand, the virtual good provider works only once and then expects to be paid by every client. This is why you won’t find any service providers equating a lost sale to a complete loss, like the virtual goods providers do. If a service provider loses a sale, he actually loses just the profit (which, let’s say, just as an example, was 20% of the sale price). On the other hand, when a virtual good provider loses a sale, he also loses just the profit… only that in this case, the profit is 100% of the sale price. So, you see, in the end is only a matter of some people wanting to suck everybody else dry and to make fabulous profits by taking advantage of some peoples’ lack of understanding of how these things work.

Bosses fire employees all the time. Mechanics refuse work all the time. This is no different. Customers have every right to take their business elsewhere if other places provide better value. It has nothing to do with open source. A market in which people are OBLIGED to pay for services they don’t want is not a free market.

My internet access isn’t free. Is yours?

Newspapers have failed to maintain ownership of the media and the distribution of their original content.

Much like the telegraph companies, radio broadcasters and network television broadcasters ignored the technologies that diminished or replaced them, newspapers have failed to own the networks and internet service providers that distributes their content and that control their customers’ access to them.

Dragging the tired, old monthly subscription model into the digital age unchanged won’t work.

Newspapers need to study how radio and network television have responded to the changes in their industries.

Newspapers could certainly learn and build on the business model developed between content providers, channel owners and cable networks.

Customers simply are not going to pay twice for internet access and for content, especially when much of the same content is available at no additional charge on other sites.

I think you misunderstand his point. I don’t think he’s suggesting old people are stupid. He’s suggesting that younger people are more accustomed to easily accessible, free content and how to get to it. Younger people unused to the old model will look at a paywall page, say ‘Pfft’ and immediately move on to the same story someplace else, thus never discovering the ‘value’ of the NYT. The NYT will become completely irrelevant to them. The older generation, who have grown up with the NYT and consider it valuable will be more inclined to pay.

Two words: Judy Miller