posted March 28, 2011 06:51 PM            

March 28, 2011 | ISSUE 47•13

02.07.08 NEW YORK—In a move that media executives, economic forecasters, and business analysts alike are calling "extremely bold," NYTimes.com put into place a groundbreaking new business model today in which the news website will charge people money to consume the goods and services it provides. "The whole idea of an American business trying to make a profit off of a product its hired professionals create on a daily basis is a truly brave and intrepid strategy," said media analyst Steve Messner, adding that NYTimes.com's extremely risky new approach to commerce—wherein legal tender must be exchanged in order to receive a desired service—could drastically reduce the publication's readership. "To ask NYTimes.com's 33 million unique monthly visitors to switch to a cash-for-manufactured-goods-based model from the standard everything-online-should-be-free-for-reasons-nobody-can-really-explain-based model is pretty fearless. It's almost as if The New York Times is equating itself with a business trying to function in a capitalistic society." In a statement released last Thursday, the newspaper's publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. said, "If this fails, I'd honestly rather The New York Times not exist in a world where people are unwilling to pay the price of a ******* movie ticket for a monthly online subscription."
http://www.theonion.com/articles/nytimescoms-plan-to-charge-people-money-for-consum,19847/

posted March 29, 2011 12:39 AM            

What do you think about the chances the NY Times can make this work?