To the New York Times: You’re too expensive

I get most of my news on my phone. Over the years it’s edged out the more traditional news sources I used to rely on. I gave up on my local paper almost a decade ago. I never watch cable news and almost never watch network or local TV news. I catch an occasional NPR newscast during my commute. Other than that, it’s my phone all the way.

nyt

I started to rely on The New York Times back when I had my Palm Pre. It’s easy to say that theirs was the best Pre news app; there were few apps for that forlorn platform. When The Times erected its paywall in 2010, they never got around to updating their Pre app to require paid login. At last, an advantage to being on an abandoned mobile operating system! For two years I had free run of The Times while everybody else could read only so many free articles before the paywall insisted they pony up.

In those years I came to really value The Times’ reporting. I felt better informed than I had with any of the sources I followed before โ€“ achieved just by scanning the headlines and reading maybe five articles each day.

About a year ago The Times finally got wise to us freeloading Pre users and killed the app. I went through withdrawal! Shortly afterward I upgraded to a shiny new iPhone 5, and the first thing I did was download The Times app. I could read only stories among the day’s top headlines โ€“ limited access, to be sure, but it was surprisingly satisfying. I could only have wished for greater access to their business and technology coverage. But they changed the rules a few weeks ago. Now I can read articles from any section, not just the day’s top headlines โ€“ but I’m limited to just three articles a day. I found this to be crippling. Every day I burned through my three articles in no time and was left hungry for more.

The New York Times’ reporting has value and deserves customers who pay. I’d be happy to pay in line with the value I think I get from The Times. But given how few articles I read each day, their entry-level digital subscription is too expensive at $195 each year. If they offered a limited-access subscription for $50 or $75 a year, I’d bite. I would probably even bite at $100 a year, though I’d grumble a little.

reuters

In frustration, I deleted The Times’ app from my phone last week and downloaded the Thomson Reuters app, which gives free access to a huge number of articles. The app is slick and easy to use; it’s better designed than The Times’ app. Reuters brings good coverage of national and world stories, and their technology and business beats are pretty good. Content is updated continuously, often while I’m in the app, so there’s always something new to read.

But I miss The Times’ voice, and keep hoping they’ll offer a less-expensive entry-level subscription. I’d come right back.


Comments

17 responses to “To the New York Times: You’re too expensive”

  1. Mandy Avatar
    Mandy

    Thanks Jim… I’ll try that app!

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      Hope you like it.

  2. RRAlexander Avatar

    I’m not much of a news hound. For several decades I subscribed to the local newspaper, The Press-Enterprise, a company I worked for in the early 1970s. But the paper was increasingly less satisfying and I read it progressively less often. At the end, I found myself doing two things with it; bringing it in the house every day, then carting the unread papers out to the recycling bin at the end of the week. I realized how much less than useful it was about the time that the subscription fee was raised yet again, again, again. That was the end of it, a few years ago.
    If I feel the need to read the news now, I go online, usually to the BBC.

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      I had a Beeb news app for a while but it didn’t connect with me. Sometimes I catch BBC radio news and think it’s a great little newscast.

  3. pesoto74 Avatar

    I still get the local paper because it does a pretty good job covering local news. And I hate to say it, but at my age I look at the obits. I’m not the news junkie that I once was so for national news I just check the headlines on Yahoo or a place like that once in a while. I do see why sites need to charge to do news. Its not fair to expect people to do that work for nothing.

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      I quit the local paper when my ex and I split because for a time I couldn’t afford it! Then when I could again, I realized I hadn’t missed it. I’ve never been a huge news junkie but the one thing I do miss is good local coverage. I still have within me somewhere a screed against local TV news, which I almost never watch anymore because it is so useless.

      I agree: news organizations deserve to be paid for their work. I just want my cost to be in line with the value I get.

  4. kiwiskan Avatar

    We still get a paper newspaper, but don’t know how long that will last. Most of our news we hear on the radio…

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      I miss what the newspaper used to mean to me. But the newspaper isn’t now what it was then. Hooray for radio!

  5. Bernie Kasper Avatar

    As Dr. Egon Spengler said so famously in Ghostbusters “Print is Dead” said in the 1984 movie, hit it pretty darn close didn’t he !!

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      He was a prophet.

      1. Lone Primate Avatar
        Lone Primate

        Wait, maybe that was “profit”… :)

  6. Derek Avatar

    Thats pretty steep for “entry level”

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      My point exactly!

  7. Lone Primate Avatar
    Lone Primate

    I’ve been feeling exactly the same way about The Globe and Mail here in Toronto. They email me headlines every day, but you’re limited to ten free articles a month. And it’s $20 a month, plus tax (13% provincial and federal here in Ontario). Do the math. That’s about $270 a year. YOW. Just for electrons?? I could ask some rude questions about “does that come with a…?” but this is a family site so I won’t. :)

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      yeah. That’s almost as much as it would cost to buy the physical paper every day. That’s what I don’t understand — paper is massively expensive, the major cost of publishing a newspaper, yet when you go paperless the cost to us stays the same? What?

  8. Richard Kraneis Avatar

    Jim,

    Thanks. At your suggestion I am trying the Reuters app.

    I read the WSJ daily and would like to diversify my news feed a bit.

    Richard

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      I hope you find it to be as balanced as I do.

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