New York Times Restricts Access: Will You Notice?
By: Mark Winter
Do Not Pass Go! Do Not Read ‘All the News That’s Fit to Print’
The Gray Lady, better known as The New York Times, introduced its new subscription structure or paywall on Monday, March 28. Now we’ve had a week to decide how, if at all, the change has impacted our lives.
The $40 million investment by the New York Times Company marks an aggressive approach in an industry that has hemorrhaged in recent years with the increase in digital consumption through smartphones and other mobile devices.
But not all content is behind a great, inky barrier. The New York Times has developed a complex system to let stories trickle out. Readers can still access up to 20 articles a month. They can still view stories shared through Facebook and Twitter. Searching for articles that just so happen to be in the New York Times will get you an additional five articles per search engine, per day. There’s more to the subscription, with a special price of $.99 for the first month. You can read about it here. 
Faster than you could say “AP Stylebook,” tips and tricks for subverting and duping the The Times’ new paywall system flooded the Internet with scoffs and cheers coming from both sides.
If you’re like me and have made it this long without the need to pour over each word of each page, you won’t notice a difference.
For me, the greater issue is how we as a society will change our perception of the value of information.
Is a few dollars a month too much to ask for unlimited access to not just today’s news, but information dating back to the newspaper’s humble beginning in 1851?
Should we have to pay to know what’s going on in our world?
Is there a middle ground?
