Today the New York Times disappears behind a paywall. Introductory pricing is 99c for first four weeks, but the non-discounted rates seem steep, even for such a good journalistic product. After reading 20 articles over 4 weeks, you hit the wall. Then you must choose between: $15/month for web viewing + smartphone; $20/month for web access + app on a tablet; or $35/month for accessing the NYTimes on all devices

Lots of commentary around on this. I liked Frederic Filloux’s analysis which includes the observation that the NYT paywall pricing “is like the French tax system: expensive, utterly complicated, disconnected from the reality and designed to be bypassed”.

In another post, Filloux explores an intriguing option: that the Times continues to print its blockbuster Sunday Edition (which makes tons of money), while going online-only for the rest of the week. His conclusion is that this could result in annual revenue of $1 billion compared with the $1.5 billion the Times has been earning to date.