The New York Times said it will stop charging for access to most of it’s site starting tonight at midnight. These leaves the Wall Street Journal as the only major US newspaper to charge for online access. It is worth noting that some of the older NYT archives will continue to require a paid subscription.
Of course this move wasn’t done as an act of kindness. Rather it was a financial decision made because NYT discovered that they could make more money on advertising than they could on subscriptions. Which really seems like an obvious conclusion. In the print world all the costs are carried by the advertisers. Why wouldn’t it work in a similar manner online? Duh.
