The New York Times is thinking about doing a subscription only site again. As someone who witnessed the rise and fall of internet publishing in the middle '90s, then the rise and fall of internet entertainment in the late '90s, followed by the rise of free political blogs and video sites in the early 2000s, I can tell you that this is a terrible idear.
Michael Crowley, on the other hand, think it's an awesome idear:
Given that some people spend $5 per day on coffee, paying that much per month for online access the best newspaper in the world strikes me as an absolute no-brainer. I myself would pay twice as much. I hope the idea catches on, and I hope this marks a shift from the days of newspapers panicking to the start of successful new business models.
Subscription-only content isn't a "new business model." It's been tried before and it failed.
This is an idea that's clearly been conceived by people who 1) haven't learned from the past, and 2) don't understand the internet and probably never will. If the New York Times begins to charge for their content, we'll just get our news from any number of other sometimes-reliable news sources. Or whoever is paying for it will leak out important bits and then we'll all have it.
On the internets, life finds a way.