Productive Pinoy

New York Times is thinking of changing their pay model. Currently, reading from NYT is free of charge.  They rely on revenues generated from advertisement but this does not seem to work for the company for now. So they are thinking of doing the following:

1. Casual Browsers or Readers -- Free to read

2. High Volume Readers -- Pay some sort of subscription fee

While they ask some readers to pay, they will still sell advertising.

Dear NYT...  If I may... I think its a bad idea. Why ask people who read lots of what you write pay? These are your loyal readers (also loyal customers) ... They give you traffic, page views, etc...  They send your link to their friends when they find your paper/.com helpful. Why make them pay for a problem that is not really their concern? 

NYT is a great paper. It would be a waste to loose readers because of this move. Instead, you might want to revisit the other aspects of your business. Maybe... your cost structure. Maybe...the type of people you employ... the office space that you rent. Maybe you can loose some more of the expenses directly unrelated to publishing. And make a lot of money from somewhere else or in a different way? (where? I don't know...)

I hope NYT will get this right and make the right decision. 

"At the end of the day, if we don't get this right, a lot of money falls out of the system." -- Times digital chief Martin Nisenholtz