corrente

After 11/2, everything changed, and I decided to stop paying the Times Tax by purchasing the paper edition. And despite an occasional slip, I've succeeded, and the Times is poorer by $60 (the dailies) and $40 (the Sunday). Looks like there are others like me, since the The World's Greatest Newspaper (not!) is feeling a "troubling" revenue pinch:

"We are reviewing the [New York Times] site to see whether or not there would be any areas where we should change the business model [to subscription]," said the paper's spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis, according to a Reuters report.

The upcoming issue of BusinessWeek, which features a cover story on The New York Times Co., says there's been an internal debate on the question of subscriptions. "It gets to the question of how comfortable are we training a generation of readers to get quality information for free," Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., the paper's publisher, is quoted as saying in the article. "That is troubling."
(via Times)

Oh my. That's almost too rich: "quality information." Is that chutzpah, or what? Say, does Judy "Kneepads" Miller still have a job? Thought so. Talk to me, Arthur, when she doesn't.

Oh, and:

The Times site had about 18.5 million unique visitors in November, according to the Reuters report.

Interesting. That puts Kos in the same order of magnitude; about a quarter the size, but in striking distance, and rising fast in the league tables.

Like we said: Disintermediation (back).

Part of me hates to see The Times go into a death spiral, but at least I won't have to listen to Little Danny Okrent whine about how everything would be lovely if it weren't for those pesky readers (back).