The New York Times plans to release a final decision soon about how it intends to charge people for a service that they can get nearly anywhere else for free. Again.
While solid editorial writing should come at a premium just like everything else, the power of great columnists can’t possibly be enough to push a readership that hasn’t had a newspaper subscription for years into paying for their news.
Given the massive amount of publishing display devices at CES this year, as well as Apple’s probable announcement of a tablet Mac next week, it seems to make more sense for the Times to suck up last quarters’ losses and hold off for six months to eye developing a compelling “virtual newspaper” cloud app based on API used by at least one of these new devices.
Magazines will most certainly take advantage of this technology… and I predict will fast become exclusive to the new medium (the transition will likely be quick… magazines putting out tablet editions would essentially have to publish two editions per issue if also putting out the traditional paper edition). It seems more plausible that Times readers would be more apt to subscribe to something that is tangible as an edition rather than a series of web pages. Consumers still know the web as a free source of information, no matter how expertly crafted.
