# Apparently nytimes.com has been working on their paywall. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 20, 2013, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498 "2013-03-20T23:01:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/1 "2013-03-20T23:01:20Z")
Putting [nytimes.com](http://nytimes.com) in a Google News search [In that column down tne left hand side.] would get me access to many articles. Clicking a [nytimes.com](http://nytimes.com) article selected by Google news will now only get me ten articles a month before hitting the pay wall. They had said they were going to allow Google News searches to skirt the pay wall. Is this the case everywhere are do I have something configured wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/2 "2013-03-20T23:10:17Z")
Their [FAQ](http://www.nytimes.com/content/help/account/purchases/subscriptions-and-purchases.html#digital-sub-search-social) says: > [@](#): > > Can I access [NYTimes.com](http://NYTimes.com) articles through Facebook, Twitter, search engines or my blog? > > Yes. We encourage links from Facebook, Twitter, search engines, blogs and social media. When you visit [NYTimes.com](http://NYTimes.com) through a link from one of these channels, that article (or video, slide show, etc.) will count toward your monthly limit of 10 free articles, but you will still be able to view it even if you’ve already read your 10 free articles. > > Like other external links, links from search engine results will count toward your monthly limit. If you have reached your monthly limit, you’ll have a daily limit of 5 free articles through a given search engine. This limit applies to the majority of search engines. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/3 "2013-03-21T09:05:58Z")
I’m not a NYT subscriber. And I read four or five or so articles in NYT every day (ETA: and sometimes many more than that), yet I’ve never run into a limit on the articles I can read. What am I doing wrong? (Possibilities: 1. I run my browser with JavaScript disabled most of the time. Does the NYT article-counting only work if their web pages can run JS in my browser? 2. I delete my cookies regularly. Does the NYT article-counting depend on keeping cookies on my machine?) (ETA: Mostly, I go to those articles directly at the NYT site, from links on their own home page, and NOT usually through links that I find elsewhere.) ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/4 "2013-03-21T12:43:21Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > I delete my cookies regularly. Does the NYT article-counting depend on keeping cookies on my machine? In my experiences, it depends entirely on cookie tracking. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/5 "2013-03-21T12:47:52Z")
NY Times used to rely on the parameters passed back in the web URL - the stuff after the question mark. Use “in Private” browsing with IE and delete the gobbledegook after the question mark of the link, and a website will assume you are a brand new visitor. Since In Private basically remembers nothing, essentially this is correct; you are a brand new visitor each time. ---
**Author:** ![srzss05](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@srzss05](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/srzss05)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/6 "2013-03-21T13:04:02Z")
> [@MikeS](#): > > In my experiences, it depends entirely on cookie tracking. I’m almost positive you are correct. I have cookies turned off for 99% of the internet, and I just checked for my local paper that does tracking. It says “10 articles left” every time I try to read a new article. ---
**Author:** ![TheSeaOtter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ed655f/32.png) [@TheSeaOtter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheSeaOtter)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/7 "2013-03-21T17:32:28Z")
> [@srzss05](#): > > I’m almost positive you are correct. I have cookies turned off for 99% of the internet, and I just checked for my local paper that does tracking. It says “10 articles left” every time I try to read a new article. Quite so. Most modern browsers have an ‘anonymous’ mode of some sort (Chrome calls it ‘Incognito’, Safari ‘private browsing’, etc) which denies sites access to cookies. I use it for my NYT browsing these days, as it keeps their paywall from functioning. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/8 "2013-03-22T01:19:40Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Their [FAQ](http://www.nytimes.com/content/help/account/purchases/subscriptions-and-purchases.html#digital-sub-search-social) says: Wait, they have a monthly limit of 10 articles, then five a day (that’s around 150 a month)? That makes no sense, even if the five articles have to be from a search engine, and they make it sound like you could use three different search engines (“through a given search engine”) to view 15 articles a day, even if you didn’t disable cookies. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/9 "2013-03-22T01:37:34Z")
> [@Michael63129](#): > > Wait, they have a monthly limit of 10 articles, then five a day (that’s around 150 a month)? That makes no sense, even if the five articles have to be from a search engine, and they make it sound like you could use three different search engines (“through a given search engine”) to view 15 articles a day, even if you didn’t disable cookies. The paywall is meant to be porous. They want people to be able to read and link to their articles so that they don’t make themselves irrelevant, but they also understandably want money. So the paywall basically serves as a minor guilt-trip. People who are susceptible to that sort of thing, don’t want to bother making the minor efforts necessary to go around the wall, have spare money or want to support the Times will be reminded to subscribe. People who don’t have the money, don’t care about supporting the Times, etc. will still beable to read articles. I was kinda sceptical when they first implemented it, but it seems to have worked pretty well. The Times is still widely linked from blogs, Twitter, whatever, while at the same time have have grown their online subscriber base. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/10 "2013-03-22T01:39:19Z")
It’s a porous paywall. Basically, the New York Times has to walk a line between getting money from online readers and having its articles read by the general public. It’s in their interest for people to be reading, linking to and quoting their articles. They do call themselves the “paper of record.” ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/11 "2016-07-11T00:42:25Z")
This may have been well known all along but I just discovered that Google News will let me into selected articles on several really tight-assed sited like The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. ---
**Author:** ![urban1a](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47c2d/32.png) [@urban1a](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urban1a)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/12 "2016-07-11T01:17:31Z")
Ten articles is a strange number; I wonder how they came up with that? It does, however, explain something I am experiencing through a news aggregator and the Denver Post. I use the RSS reader for almost all of my news on a daily basis and selected the Denver Post to try to keep up with the local scene, not knowing just what I would get. In face, I get 10 articles. Exactly who makes a determination which articles are included in their RSS feed, I have no idea, but sometimes I get only recipes, sometimes sports stuff only, sometimes national news, and I always get ‘Dear Amy’ the Post’s ‘agony aunt’. I stopped subscribing to the Post after 30 or so years because there if virtually nothing in it anymore but ads and coverage of local sports. I am not sure just how long before they have to fold like the ‘Rocky Mountain News’ which was superior newspaper, anyway. Bob ---
**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/13 "2016-07-11T14:24:12Z")
> [@urban1a](#): > > Ten articles is a strange number; I wonder how they came up with that? High enough not to be obnoxious, but low enough to trigger warnings (“You have X free articles left this month”) for casual, non-savvy readers who end up on [Nyt.com](http://Nyt.com) and start clicking around? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/14 "2016-07-11T15:03:11Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > I’m not a NYT subscriber. And I read four or five or so articles in NYT every day (ETA: and sometimes many more than that), yet I’ve never run into a limit on the articles I can read. What am I doing wrong?.. 😕 “Wrong?” Pinch Sulzberger: “Stealing bread from the mouths of my children!” Me: “Spending too much time with the fucking NYTimes.” [Note: The wife of **Leo Bloom** is an employee of the NYTimes.] ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/15 "2016-07-11T18:31:42Z")
The point about what they are doing is this - You can read five articles a day if some other agent has found you those articles. Such as a search engine, or they get posted on social media etc. This can include articles from years ago - which is a good thing. What you can’t do is use the nytimes as a newspaper. If you want to read the nytimes on a daily basis as a source of news, analysis and commentary, you are going to have to subscribe. You can’t usefully browse for interesting current articles. Before the paywall went up I had the nytimes site as a permanent tab in my browser, as it seemed to one of a few good news sites to include in daily browsing. (Note that I’m in Oz, and for me, the nytimes was providing one perspective on events that I found useful amongst others that I read.) The paywall wrecked that. I didn’t read it enough to make subscribing worthwhile - but I did read it enough to miss it. In principle, you could get past the paywall with a range of techniques, but the effort required is, for me, just enough to make it not worth my time. This is an interesting and difficult set of problems. How to actually make a high end news site pay on the internet. More to the point- how to make it pay enough for the paper as a whole to survive the destruction of a market for the printed page. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/16 "2016-07-11T19:22:52Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > How to actually make a high end news site pay on the internet. More to the point- how to make it pay enough for the paper as a whole to survive the destruction of a market for the printed page. > > . heck some places have a hard time making a website like ours viable … You should of seen the subscription vs ads debates before the compromise what the problem is like in the op people got used to free websites and now that real money is needed to keep said sites open no one wants to pay for anything leading to a arms race between the sites and things like adblocker ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/17 "2016-07-12T02:52:14Z")
It’s a big problem for all the media companies. I’ve noticed the Guardian has started posting appeals for funding on their site as well. It may be that the free access we’ve all become accustomed to is doomed to fail. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/18 "2016-07-12T03:55:55Z")
What do you all think of Google’s experimental micropayment-revenue-sharing program, Contributor? [https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/](https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/) You pay a monthly fee to Google, see fewer ads, and content publishers that you patronize get a cut. I don’t want to pay the NYTimes $10/mo and The Guardian another $10 etc., but I would gladly pay them for $0.25 to $1 per article that I read and like… all my news comes from aggregators now, not individual papers, so the per-paper subscription model isn’t attractive. Does that seem unreasonable? ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-nytimes-com-has-been-working-on-their-paywall/653498/19 "2016-07-12T05:47:02Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > You pay a monthly fee to Google, see fewer ads, and content publishers that you patronize get a cut. How much of a cut? For the content providers this looks like a long term very bad deal. Google decides who gets what, and decides what “fewer” ads means. The obvious steady state is one where the content providers receive only just enough money to stay alive, and Google pockets the rest. Google then ramps up the ads to the point where they reach a sweet spot where they maximise their own profit. The likely outcome is one where the only happy people are Google’s shareholders.