It could. If you read deep-down in the article you can also see that the NYT and WSJ are making massive efforts to keep new subscribers, but the LA Times doesn't appear to be investing much at all. It's possible that could be the biggest factor.

The NYT at least has been investing a lot into tech (and reporting) and the results are evident in some of the really cool stuff they produce. I remember they were amongst the first who really got into D3 and some of their charts at the time were superior to pretty much any other .org.

Also, the recent magazine like articles they’ve had have been exceptional in the tech, while not messing with the default browser behaviors too much (such as overriding scrolls).

That’s gotta be the direction the news orgs have to take. They have to increasingly become tech companies.

Those overproduced tech demo articles are a big waste of time, in my opinion. Harder to read and annoying.

They're not focusing on retention. The author offers admittedly anecdotal evidence, but it's telling. Lots of these pubs that are "implementing paywall" like it's a feature that'll print consumer revenue may experience the same thing, especially the ones that start at $5/year and increase to $50/year on year two.