[concam]

We desperately need the continued work of serious investigative journalism outfits. Even the existence of organizations able (willing?) to report fact-checked stories held to a high editorial standard seems tenuous. These businesses are not a public service but in my estimation all Americans benefit from an independent fourth estate.

If you read NYT articles with any regularity I strongly urge you to subscribe. For me the cost of a digital subscription is trivial relative to the value I get from it.

[noncoml]

Subscriptions is not the solution. It's an old model that doesn't work anymore.

What we need is micropayments.

[chomp]

Micropayments have failed constantly since the .com bubble days.

The whole thing with micropayments is that the content creator is hoping that the cost to purchase the article is going to be low enough to where the user isn't going to notice the money.

But they will notice. You're forcing a person to read a headline (and maybe a half paragraph intro) and then deciding if it's actually worth buying the article. That's a decision that the average person is not going to put up with.

The best solution is to support publications that produce consistent and high quality content. The best model for this (that we know of) is recurring payment.