Goodbye, New York Times

With reports that the New York Times is leaning toward charging $5 to view their stories online, let's examine what that will mean to me.

I'll miss them when they go behind the paywall (again), but not like I would miss my dog. There will be a gap in my online news habit, but nothing like the chasm that existed when Seinfeld ended its run.

Sad tales of how the formerly comfortable can no longer have a summer place in Martha's Vineyard or keep three kids in private school? Not so much.

Things like this are actually good. They make me examine the value proposition involved, which can be difficult when the content is free. Even if the offering is crappy, it's hard not to tell myself that I get what I pay for, so it's my own damn fault. And if I want to continue freeloading, shouldn't I pick a better product for my non-dollar?

That's when it became clear that over the last several years, the value of the New York Times online content has dropped to the point where $5 seems like highway robbery. If honest examination of the free model provided data to support the position that I was using the site far less than ever before, when it was cost-free, how in the world could I cost-justify a fiver?

The short answer is that I can't. Frank Rich is worth maybe thirty cents, but they should pay me to read Ross Douthat, MoDo, and Tom Friedman. I'm more entertained digesting what others think after they've read some of the Times Op-Ed columnists than I am reading the columns themselves. And the general news and business coverage is solid, if unremarkable, but certainly nothing that I can't find from a myriad of sources.

These guys employed Bill Kristol for year. I should get a year free as restitution.

I was part of that tiny group that tested the waters with Times Select, the last attempt to generate some revenue by putting their most popular content in Al Capone's vault. I soon dropped it, for essentially the same reason - value.

In a distributed media model, gathering little morsels from a variety of locations helps me see different perspectives, which allows me to bounce ideas off of myself. The allure and gravitas associated with the Old Gray Lady doesn't hold much sway when compared to a veritable army of newsers all digging for details. Perhaps the folks who put out the Times will feel insulted by this, but that's their problem, not mine.

The minute they added fees into the equation, this became a business deal. Micropayments might salvage the relationship - I can see dropping .02 each week to ponder Rich, or an article that someone else perused and trumpets as a must-read, but with all the anti-Google threats being bandied about, who knows if that model will be broken. I know that I've found thousands of offerings via Google Reader that I would never have known about if I had to visit the sites personally and tromp through the forest to find that one well-versed tree.

Goodbye, New York Times. You've been a steady, if somewhat needy, friend, but when asked to choose, you don't make it into the regular rotation.

Let me know if you change your mind.

Image by Renzo Piane