[poblano]

I think the explanation is much more simple: it's working because most people aren't tech-savvy enough to figure out the loopholes and feel comfortable using them on a regular basis.

Kind of an interesting form of freemium business model, actually...

[potatolicious]

I'm tech savvy enough to dodge the paywall, but I'm also a paying NYT subscriber. I do it because traditional journalism has nearly completely collapsed, and I don't want to see a world that's solely dominated by TechCrunch, Engadget, Gizmodo-style, he-said-she-said bloggery.

In the last year I've made a concerted effort to subscribe to media sources that have quality reporting and/or writing.

[poblano]

That's wonderful, truly noble -- seriously -- but you, OP, and people like you are probably a very small group, at least compared to the masses of people who are paying simply because they don't know how to jump the paywall (or find it unpleasant to). If the paywall is "working", aka "making money for the NYT," it's mainly because of the techno-illiterates.

[jetti]

Just like in the article, I beg to disagree. This reminded me of an article I saw a while back (which I can't find at the moment) of a guy who brought donuts into work and then quit his job to start his bakery. He would bring in donuts and then realize that he wasn't getting enough money to cover the donuts when charging per donut so what he did was put out a tip/donation basket/jar and would have a sign stating donations accepted. Turned out he would make more per location doing that than if he charged per donut. He attributed this to the fact that in a group setting people would feel guilty not contributing as well as people's conscious coming into play. (Please forgive the butchering of my recount of the tale and if anybody has a link it would be appreciated if they could post)

Your explanation is incredibly cynical and suggests that people are all completely self-centered and lack empathy. There are still people who will pay for things that bring them value and recognize hard work that goes into a product. It is the same reason why people donate to open source projects. They don't need to. They could easily use the project and be on their way.

[mattmanser]

Did you just read the title and post? The entire article is about the email and tweets he got saying exactly this. And then him debunking this position. Not very convincingly, but anyway.

It's the opening paragraph.