Journal readers have more disposable income than typical newspaper readers, and the WSJ is a valuable brand, so its subscribers are willing to pay extra (where "extra" means "more than zero") for the quality. There are other niche markets where this works: e.g., LWN.net is supported mostly by subscriptions.

But the history of mass media publications charging for content, as Kinsley describes, is a history of one failure after another.

You don't think NYT is a valuable brand or his great reader demographics? I certainly wouldn't argue charging is right for every newspaper. At the risk of getting some Michael Dell-style egg on my face later, I'd say that most of them ought to just shut down now and give what little they can get via liquidation back to the investors.

That's a very short-sighted view you have there. I really hope you are not working in this space, because if you are, you are blinding yourself to the reality of the situation. Numbers are down everywhere.

The question is - how are those numbers broken down? Are these people who stumbled across the site and decided to subscribe because the content convinced them? Or because of the already existing brand?

Think of a paper just launching with no name, but that wants to go the pay route. How long do you think this paper will survive before running out of money?

The wsj is just moving subscribers from it's paper to the online, this is completely different from launching a successful pay website.

The reality of the situation is that online advertising doesn't make enough money to support real journalism. It just doesn't. I wish that it did. I'd prefer to continue reading NYT for free of course. But my wishing it doesn't make it so.

I have no doubt that new papers would find it near impossible to draw paying subscribers online, but they'd find it totally impossible to profitably put out good original content via ad revenue. I'll take nearly impossible over totally impossible any day. People used to think it nearly impossible that the Japanese could succeed in the car market.

I'm assuming this Op-Ed was aimed at the NYT itself, given the news yesterday. They almost certainly need to charge, and their content is of the same caliber as WSJ (and has impressive demographics) so they can get away with it.

It won't work for local papers, of course, they're just doomed. But those are irrelevant anyway. They're merely a bunch of AP/Reuters stories with a little poorly written sports commentary and a police scanner tied in. Nobody under 60 will miss them.

I read a lot, but I have little interest in reading the new york times or the wall street journal - because they mean nothing to me. I was never exposed to them being some type of authority, and the few articles I've read on their site did not in any way impress me as being way above the caliber of any other article on any other site. The biggest papers may succeed based of their current name recognition, but this is going to disappear soon.

What's real journalism? Opinion pieces? I think Michael Arrington knows a lot more than most tech NY Times writers. Interviews? The info comes from the interviewer. Sending reporters to the Congo to cover some local conflict? Well, the Congo has local newspapers, and they are covering the conflict there extremely well. And their coverage is also available online to be mixed and matched.

"Real Journalism" cannot be supported by ads - this does not mean that the alternative is a pay system, it means that "Real Journalism" will die. The information monopoly is dead, and that's a good thing.

A newspaper is a combination of opinion pieces, current affairs and analysis. Opinion pieces can be purchased from freelance experts, current affairs can be mashed together from more local and accurate news, and analysis can be done by people who actually understand the topic.

Sure, you don't want your favorite newspaper to die, but there were people who wanted carriages to last forever. You're one of the technologists, accept the new reality.

If New York Times journalism doesn't impress you then you don't read enough of it, or don't read enough periodicals in general. I won't argue that they're the best source of tech news specifically, but they're probably the best of the general media. Their business, politics, science, health, arts, and other sections have a level of depth, understanding, and quality writing that TechCrunch or any big blog never even comes close to. TechCrunch writers might have a lot of breaking info on the startup world, but most of the opinion pieces there are poorly contrived, and the writing is barely above middle-school level.

If you think that the new reality is blogs replacing quality journalism, and that doesn't scare you, then you're either selling quality journalism short or you just don't know what it is. Enough people always will that it will have a market.

"It won't work for local papers, of course, they're just doomed. But those are irrelevant anyway. They're merely a bunch of AP/Reuters stories with a little poorly written sports commentary and a police scanner tied in."

I realized this when the New York Times had better analysis pieces about cultural happenings in my city (Pittsburgh), than I've read in the local on-line paper. Their best sports writer just retired, too.

Because people will pay for 'NEWS' but not for newspapers. People will pay for upto the minute stock market data rather than the 15min delayed version, they will pay $1000s for market reports, they will pay for WSJ articles on companies they want to buy.

But most newspapers aren't selling news - they are selling entertainment. I don't pay to find out the death toll in some plane crash the day before - I pay for a newspaper to read columnists, editorials, cartoons. That's why sunday papers are the largest and most profitable.

It's like the difference between paying to watch a movie and reading the plot summary fro free on IMDB.

Because access to the WSJ can be charged to its readers' expense accounts. Customers are a lot less price-sensitive when someone else is picking up the tab.

Given that the financial climate will presumably lead to some corporate cost-cutting, there's probably an opportunity for someone to undercut the incumbent business-news providers (WSJ, Bloomberg, Reuters) in the next two years.

Are those just the same people that subscribe to the WSJ in print? Or is it a different group?

I would guess there's some overlap, but when I was a WSJ Online subscriber I didn't get the print copy. Just a waste of resources in my mind, something else to throw away.

His argument is basically that even if people do, it isn't enough money. The WSJ costs 79 bucks a year (and I somehow suspect many people aren't paying that full price) 79 million a year isn't nearly enough to save the NYT.

I guess the value of our eyes looking at ads printed on paper for a year is much higher than $79?

79 million dollars of operating profit (hosting costs assumed to be negligible) a year is quite a lot of money, and that's not even counting advertising. If the NYT's costs are so far above $79m/yr, perhaps it needs to slim down a little...

According to the article, NYT revenue last year (a bad year) was $1 billion.

Even more shameful that they can't run their operation on that much money. I appreciate it costs money to retain good writers, but $1bn a year? Surely that's enough to run a newspaper on?

They run multiple foreign bureaus, one of the most widely circulated print publications in the world, and a top-100 internet website.

I'm not saying that they couldn't be leaner, but let's try to keep some perspective.