I’ve been kicking a post around in my head about the New York Times coming paywall for a couple days, but John Gruber went ahead and wrote it for me, which allows me to eat cookies instead.

One thing many companies — in any industry — can learn from Apple is the importance of simple pricing. If you make it easy for people to understand how much they’re paying, and what they’re paying for, it is more likely that they’ll buy it. Or perhaps this is driven more by the converse: if people are confused about how much they have to pay, they’re more likely not to. The decision to purchase and the act of paying are part of the experience for any product or service, and should be designed accordingly.

Not paying is always simple.

The whole thing is worth a read.

The Times’ paywall pricing scheme is confusing, complicated, and expensive beyond reason. Even full-time media/tech/business pundits can’t quite work out all the details.

Particularly galling is the additional charge to use the iPad app, even if you’re already paying to use the iPhone app. Putting aside that their apps on both devices are mediocre at best, that’s like the water company charging you more for every glass in your house. An app should be an extension of a content website, not a separate portal with separate charges. If you’re charging for content at all, make it available on as many platforms as possible for the same price. You’ll add value with each new app, while also gaining customers from the ranks of fans of that platform. Seems obvious.

I love the Times, and I get the paper edition on Sundays, so I’ll still get all access without paying extra (actually for less! that makes sense!) but I’ll be shocked if this is anything but an utter failure at generating real revenue online.

What a shame. The Times had a chance to innovate here, to take their incredibly powerful brand and (maybe) show that it’s possible to get people to pay for quality content the same way iTunes showed that it’s possible to get people to pay for music, movies, and apps. Instead they came up with a complex, user-hostile mess that goes exactly backwards.

Anthony Hecht is The Stranger's Chief Technology Officer. He owns no monkeys.

12 replies on “Times Paywall: What He Said”

  1. The only people who have made web pricing work, other than Apple, are Netflix and Rhapsody.

    Reason? They offer extrodinary value for a very low fee.

    All the worlds music (almost) and all the worlds film (not quite) for $10 a month.

    Is the New York Times offering all the world’s news for $10 a month? Or all the worlds text?

    I think an Amazon Book, News and Magazine subscription…all you can read $10…would probably be more successful, with the Times getting a cut for every real access of their content.

  2. You make a good point.

    However, even if they adopted a simple pricing formula, the online version still wouldn’t make any money, because the internet tells us news content is free.

  5. I am toying with ordering the Sunday Times delivery ($3.75/wk for 12 weeks, then $7.50/wk) and suspending delivery indefinitely to see what they do. Explode? Ban me?

  6. I recently listened to an NPR story about this lady who re-writes financial contracts, like credit card contracts and privacy agreements. She works to make them more readable. I think they need to contract her.

  7. I was happy to pay the NYT $50./year for their earlier paywall effort, Times Select. $180./year is ridiculous, and will fail miserably. Naturally, pirates and evil cheapskates will be blamed.

  8. I agree that the pricing structure is too complicated and expensive, but I think there is a key difference here that makes NYT model different than Amazon, iTunes or Netflix in my mind.

    That difference is that Amazon, iTunes and Netfilx don’t offer any product for free. You either pay and get the content, or don’t.

    Alternatively, the NYT must offer the first click free if they want Google to index their content. Choosing to remove their content from Google would be idiotic and won’t happen. We’ve seen what happens to newspapers with full paywalls.

    Because of first click free, they are forced them to play a game with readers where there’s some hazy line between who has to pay and who doesn’t. Do you read 18 articles a month? Your price is free. Do you read 21 articles a month? Your price is $15. Do you read 40 articles a month but arrive at them from Google searches? Your price is free.

    This blend of when and why it’s free or not-free is way more confusing to consumers than paying $15/$20 depending on which device you’re using.

    Even if NYT had a simple pricing structure (i.e. a flat $8/month fee for any type of access) they would still need to play this free/not free game depending on how you access the site.

  9. So, if simple pricing means people will pay but complex pricing means people won’t that has to mean nobody in the US is buying a cell phone or service, right? Or airline tickets.

    I think it has a lot more to do with the perceived value & as long as NYT pushing shit like Bobo Brooks and Ross Asshat their value will be near zero.

  10. @9 – The difference with cell phones and airline tickets is that those industries don’t offer many alternatives to complex pricing. I shopped for a new cell phone recently and didn’t find anything that seemed simple -even in the pay-as-you-go phones. I think people do like simple airline pricing when discount airlines offer it, but the discount airlines don’t fly everywhere people need to go. For example, if I want to visit my parents I have to fly United or Delta and deal with their bullshit because those are the only airlines that fly from here to there.

    There are thousands of sources for news on the internet and most of them are free. I do think the NYT is better than most of the competition, but you need to be MUCH better and simple to compete with free.

  11. @9 – As @10 said (and in the article I linked), some industries get away with complex pricing because they have no competition, or all their competition prices things just as opaquely. Airlines and cell phone companies are perfect examples.

    Where there is lots of competition, simple pricing wins, all other things being equal. The Times has a good product to offer, and I think if they priced it very simply and cheaply, they would have a better chance than almost anyone else to make a pay model for news content work.

    @8 brings up a good point about Google forcing some of the complexity in order to be able to have the content indexed, which is critical.

  12. So, I got an e-mail this morning from the NY Times telling me that I can have free access for the rest of the year, courtesy of Lincoln. I was going to pay anyway, since I read the Times all the time. But I’ll take this.

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