>>This rumor has been bouncing around for a while now - but it looks like it might actually come true...
>>http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/19/cnet.new.york.times.online.charge/index.html?hpt=Sbin
>>
>>I'll be interested to see if this works - although I won't be one of the people willing to pay. I would think that with the bleek outlook for newspapers these days that they would attempt to find a form of revenue that doesn't piss off all their readers...ha
>
>I think this will be the trend for many newspapers: increasing price for paper edition and charging for on-line readership. It makes business sense. They number of subscribers will go down but the printing cost will be reduced too. And those who don't want to buy paper edition will pay for online. Unless they are you <g>. In the end the papers will be profitable as should be any business.

I dunno...I still think it's a bad idea. Once someone has got something for free it's almost impossible to suddenly start charging them for it and get away with it. I think they only people that will fall for this are the die-hard NYT fans that are not web-savy enough to find the info for free. Really I think the backlash from pissed off people and the huge reduction in traffic to their site isn't worth it.