Among the top online news dailies I really like New York Times for one simple reason – it’s free. While others offer the online editions of their newspapers on a subscription basis which is tied up to print subscriptions, the New York Times managed to provide free source of relevant news. But this might start to change, as Bloomberg reports that NYT is seriously revisiting the charging fees of some its content.
According to the report, NYT is seriously considering to apply incremental charges for the web access of some its online content while still maintaining most of the contents in free access.
And NYT’s reason for this planned changes? – to compensate for the declining print advertising. Of course we don’t have to tell what’s causing this. NYT is certainly feeling the economic crunch. In fact, it has already cut some jobs and even stops paying dividends to share holders.
Although I fully understand the dilemma which NYT is in right now, I couldn’t help but wonder whether charging users who have been patronizing the New York Times for providing free news content would in any way solve NYT’s dilemma? What I could really see right now is the possibility of declining readership base.
So, would you be willing to pay a premium to New York Times online content? Or would you rather get your dose of daily news from other newspaper sources?