At least people do not obscure who is the original author of the content (so, if people like NYT articles - they could go and subscribe for more). Kinda "free advertising" (which still hurts the publisher in many cases, though). Same with search engines - as long as engine brings clicks - people are happy. If search engine just grabs the info and never redirects the user to the site - what is the point for the site to exist to begin with?