Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

'The New York Times' Ditches Subscription Fees, Sort Of

by Tim Stevens on September 18, 2007 at 11:06 AM

'The New York Times' Ditches Online Subscription Fees

In many ways, 'The New York Times' was a pioneer in the digital age when it posted much of its paper-based content online way back in 1995. But, in other ways, the site's subscription-based model made it a dinosaur, demanding that users cough up $7.95 a month or $49.95 a year to access content from certain columnists or just about anything older than a week. The paper is finally getting with the times, ditching the subscription model and offering all its content online and for free. Well, most of it anyway.

Users will be able to freely access 'Times' content dating back to 1987, as well as stories published before 1923 (which are in the public domain anyway). It's the content published between those years that will still not be free and will be sold in packages of 10 articles. But, even with this restriction, this is a very positive change over the previous pay wall model. The Times hopes to make up for the loss of subscription revenue with increased advertising revenue.

Free access launches on Wednesday, September 19, and if you happen to be one of the 227,000 paying subscribers, fear not. Expect a little refund appearing on your next credit card statement.

From Reuters

Related Links:

Tags: paid content, PaidContent, The New York Times, TheNewYorkTimes

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular