# NY Times for $1 a Week for 52 Weeks



## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

get the nytimes for $1 a week for 52 weeks

https://www.nytimes.com/subscription/inyt/lp8U87X.html?campaignId=79UFW

hard to say no to such a low price


----------



## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

Indeed it is... And a way to support REAL journalism in the face of Trump's misguided attacks on the media. Worth it for that 'cause' alone.


----------



## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

i just have so much stuff to read, watch and listen to that i cancelled my sub about 2 months ago and then saw this, i spend the monthly subscription price on a single coffee drink at starbucks for god sakes 

this gets you the basic digital access, plus you can subscribe to some amazing newsletters

if this is a sign of the times (i hope), perhaps we will see many more great newspapers with subs in the range of $5 or less per month which would be good for all of us


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

AltaRed said:


> Indeed it is... And a way to support REAL journalism in the face of Trump's misguided attacks on the media. Worth it for that 'cause' alone.



definitely worth it to donate $50-100 to a good newspaper in these times.

universities have fallen upon fractious times, churches & synagogues have disappeared/are disappearing, the justice system is surviving but no longer available for a cost that the average north american can afford.

that leaves the 5th estate almost alone to carry high the torch of investigation, communication, fact reporting, photojournalism, truth. Everything that makes us a civilization instead of a raw tribe of predators.

i don't know if they can make money at these low rates though. These might be loss leaders to get us used to the idea that we must pay for news. A year is about the right amount of time for customers to develop a powerful habit. When the trial year is up i'm expecting them to quintuple the prices.


----------



## Big Kahuna (Apr 30, 2018)

They should try a new promotion-pay people a $1 a week to take that garbage off their hands-maybe then they could move some product.


----------



## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> i don't know if they can make money at these low rates though. These might be loss leaders to get us used to the idea that we must pay for news. A year is about the right amount of time for customers to develop a powerful habit. When the trial year is up i'm expecting them to quintuple the prices.


Digital subscriptions do not cost the NY Times money, especially for non-US subscribers that are not likely to subscribe to paper copies anyway. But it increases subscriber count for advertising revenue. 

I, too, expect the 'introductory' rate to skyrocket at the end of one year, but if it does, there will be a stampede of digital subscription cancellations. Certain papers today may feel that getting the truth out, with a much larger subscriber base, is more important from a social responsibility perspective than a smaller, but loyal subscriber base. A large audience is especially true today with the WH assault on mainstream media. Too many leaders in today's world are out to control the press for their personal advantage.


----------



## Big Kahuna (Apr 30, 2018)

AltaRed said:


> Digital subscriptions do not cost the NY Times money, especially for non-US subscribers that are not likely to subscribe to paper copies anyway. But it increases subscriber count for advertising revenue.
> 
> I, too, expect the 'introductory' rate to skyrocket at the end of one year, but if it does, there will be a stampede of digital subscription cancellations. Certain papers today may feel that getting the truth out, with a much larger subscriber base, is more important from a social responsibility perspective than a smaller, but loyal subscriber base. A large audience is especially true today with the WH assault on mainstream media. Too many leaders in today's world are out to control the press for their personal advantage.


Yeah right-"social responsibility" to lie through their teeth-what-China had access to Crooked Hillary's emails in real time?-just bury it on page 42.


----------



## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

hate the part about continuing to charge my card at the standard rate after a year if not cancelled.
i just bet i'llhave a "problem" trying to cancel the damn thing!


----------



## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

AltaRed said:


> Digital subscriptions do not cost the NY Times money, especially for non-US subscribers that are not likely to subscribe to paper copies anyway. But it increases subscriber count for advertising revenue.
> 
> I, too, expect the 'introductory' rate to skyrocket at the end of one year, but if it does, there will be a stampede of digital subscription cancellations. Certain papers today may feel that getting the truth out, with a much larger subscriber base, is more important from a social responsibility perspective than a smaller, but loyal subscriber base. A large audience is especially true today with the WH assault on mainstream media. Too many leaders in today's world are out to control the press for their personal advantage.


right ar, once price levels are established it is hard to reclaim old prices, people get used to paying a certain price and they start to get stubborn, the telcos know this ... 

also, i should say that i have noticed, just browsing this morning that they are showing some display ads as well as asking "do you want to receive special offers from our partners" when you sign up for a newsletter so i think what we are heading for is digital access with some soft selling to shore up the bottom line ... you can always turn on the ad-blocker ... i haven't yet, we'll see what they do


----------



## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

fatcat said:


> ... you can always turn on the ad-blocker ... i haven't yet, we'll see what they do


Most publications are wise to blockers now and won't allow you to view if it's turned on...

ltr


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

AltaRed said:


> Digital subscriptions do not cost the NY Times money



oh but they do cost money. To name a few hard costs associated strictly with online subscribers, there are the website designers, the digital administration personnel, the digital customer care teams.

with the business model they're driving towards, online subscribers will also be responsible for an increasing portion of total costs. The journalists, the editors, the costs of foreign bureaux, wire service memberships, commnications, office rental, transportation, coop fees.

these expenses can't be attributed solely to the printed version of a media. Not in an era when printed versions are losing money. Not in an era when survival means enough online subscribers to pay for the entire operation.


----------



## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

Well, not a lot of money. Whether they have 100 or 1,000,000 online subscribers is going to make very little difference, i.e. database management. That is really the point. Every publication that I know of has an online digital experience, some better than others. Some publications are only online these days.


----------



## lonewolf :) (Sep 13, 2016)

AltaRed said:


> Indeed it is... And a way to support REAL journalism in the face of Trump's misguided attacks on the media. Worth it for that 'cause' alone.


 The media primary focus is not reporting the news it is hating Trump


----------



## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

lonewolf :) said:


> The media primary focus is not reporting the news it is hating Trump


It is about keeping administrations honest....as the press always has done in many countries, Canada* included. 

* Well not quite. I remember Peter Mansbridge giddy as a schoolgirl with JT leading up to, and into, his swearing in. I kept looking for when he was going to wet his pants. Peter was toast in terms of credibility thereafter.


----------



## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

like_to_retire said:


> Most publications are wise to blockers now and won't allow you to view if it's turned on...
> 
> ltr


true for some but the times is going to have a harder case to make if you are a paying subscriber, when i asked them why they had ads even when you were a subscriber, they replied that it was part of their. business model ... fair enough

running the times costs money whether it is phone service or reporting, they are trying to raise money all kinds of ways

i think $52 a year is well worth not having to fight your way around a paywall which we all know how to do but is a pain, the globe has a hard paywall. by limiting many articles to subscriber only, at least the times isn't doing that


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

AltaRed said:


> Well, not a lot of money. Whether they have 100 or 1,000,000 online subscribers is going to make very little difference, i.e. database management. That is really the point. Every publication that I know of has an online digital experience, some better than others. Some publications are only online these days.




... but one could have said that about the widget factory a century ago. Once a fabricator had perfected the machining & the moulds & had sourced his raw materials down to cheapest, he could have manufactured a few signed items to sell to elite buyers, then given away the next 10 million copies for a song, right?

except that's not how they worked. The media model we're driving towards will have all readers whether online, audio or print, paying whatever subscription fees the media will be able to charge, to help subsidize the total operation. Other revenues include advertising, a huge component. Total operation includes everything from light bulbs in the office to overseas hotels for the foreign correspondents. 

we need to learn to stop thinking of quality news as an old-fashioned print edition for "real" customers plus a freebie website that costs the media nothing to run. 

i hope very much that top quality media such as the globe & the NYT will find the masses sticking happily to digital editions as long as these are priced in the range of a cup of coffee. It would be a win/win solution for everybody.

.


----------



## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

Well yes, online subscribers must contribute net revenue to the total cost of operations. That is the model taking over from diminishing print subscriptions and revenue has to come from alternative sources. I wasn't suggesting otherwise. The $64 million dollar question, as you pointed out, is how much will the online subscriber pay? Mainstream media, for the most part, has not yet found that balance. I agree it is needs to be as inconsequential as 1-2 Starbucks each month (not that I drink Starbucks).


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

fatcat said:


> ... the times is going to have a harder case to make [including ads] if you are a paying subscriber, when i asked them why they had ads even when you were a subscriber, they replied that it was part of their. business model



when you buy a printed version of a newspaper, it comes chockfull of ads. More than half of a paper edition is ads, measured by column inches.

why should an online news edition be any different?


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

AltaRed said:


> Well yes, online subscribers must contribute net revenue to the total cost of operations ... I wasn't suggesting otherwise.



oh but you did suggest otherwise .each:

you started out saying that digital editions don't cost the NY Times anything

only with great difficulty has it been possible to suggest to you that the news media are driving to the point where digital subscribers plus advertisers will pay for _everything_. In the upcoming business model, revenue from print edition buyers will be discounted to zero.

so important is the 5th estate to the survival of truthful communication, instant hard news dissemination, fact-checking, investigative reporting, documentary journalism, in fact the very essence of civilization itself, that i imagine the ultimate digital costs will settle somewhat above that of a cup of coffee. And readers will pay those costs, because the alternative means regressing back to the cave.

consider our justice system. So far, democratic society is vigilant that courts & bodies of law must be upheld. Trials, courts & historic codes of law continue as always. Unlike the 5th estate, there is no mob rule "internet" that has yet made an alternative cheap justice system available. Would you be advocating, though, that justice in cases of severe crime should be dispensed at a cost no greater than a cup of coffee, possibly by mob rule or snap decision by a zealot dictator? somehow i totally doubt that ...

our legal system costs money. Our excellent media have legitimate costs as well. Both are vital to civilization imho.


.


----------



## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

Geez HP. I said it didn't 'cost' anything to have digital subscriptions (slight exaggeration - but it doesn't cost almost anything more to have 100 versus 1 million subscriptions). I didn't say they shouldn't make revenue off digital subscriptions to help pay for cost of company operations, including print copy. 

It costs money to run a business but it sure doesn't cost much money to run digital distribution. There is no newsprint material cost, no printing cost, no distribution costs, no paper boy costs and all the rest incurred to run paper distribution.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

AltaRed said:


> Geez HP. I said it didn't 'cost' anything to have digital subscriptions (slight exaggeration - but it doesn't cost almost anything more to have 100 versus 1 million subscriptions). I didn't say they shouldn't make revenue off digital subscriptions to help pay for cost of company operations, including print copy.
> 
> It costs money to run a business but it sure doesn't cost much money to run digital distribution. There is no newsprint material cost, no printing cost, no distribution costs, no paper boy costs and all the rest incurred to run paper distribution.



altaRed you made yourself clear in numerous posts upthread, at the outset you were not mentioning distribution at all. You were describing a media business model that is 10 years out of date.

distribution is only a fragment of a media's total costs of profitable operation. IMHO media today are motoring along splendidly to the only model that is going to provide survival, now that the internet has given un-researched mobspeak to the world.

of course digital subscribers will have to take up & pay for any operating cost slack that is not met by ad revenues. That fair share of costs will likely be something more than a starbucks coffee; but if we are fortunate, not too much more.

an investigative free press with the marked high quality that we enjoy today is a hallmark of civilization. It's like the justice system or the political core of democratic voting. Hollow these out & we regress to the cave.

good for the globe, good for the NY times. Right now they're not telling us their magic numbers - what we'll eventually have to pay in reality - but i'm staying subscribed to at least one.

me i'm sorry to see media such as the london Economist demanding payment even for a single article ... significant digital subscription costs will probably mean that most citizens will go for only one or two subs ... this will reinforce condensation in the industry.

.


----------



## Seahawk (Jan 6, 2017)

*Real charge is higher*

I signed up. After hitting the check out button they then said I would be charged $10.00 CAD per week because my credit card is Canadian. This is 1.90 USD per week which is close to the normal price of $2.00.

Cancelling is cumbersome. Must either call or chat to agent. Took a few minutes.


----------



## Seahawk (Jan 6, 2017)

Correction; that was $10.00 CAD each 4 weeks (vs. advertised $4.00 USD).


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

Seahawk said:


> Correction; that was $10.00 CAD each 4 weeks (vs. advertised $4.00 USD).





Seahawk said:


> I signed up. After hitting the check out button they then said I would be charged $10.00 CAD per week because my credit card is Canadian. This is 1.90 USD per week which is close to the normal price of $2.00.
> 
> Cancelling is cumbersome. Must either call or chat to agent. Took a few minutes.




the above ^^ is a good point. However the villain in the piece is not the NY Times but rather the speciic credit card company with its punishingly high FX fees.

there are plenty of threads in cmf forum discussing how to find a no-FX-fee credit card. There's no single solution; different folks like different kinds of cards, although the total number providing zero-FX fee service can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

if anyone has the time, perhaps explaining to the venerable Times how most canadian credit card FX fees are pretty near doubling the cost of the current NYT promotion might help. Ask if the NYT can think up a more frugal payment modality.

as best i can recall, the NYT canada editions used to be printed here in canada, to save costs. Don't know the situation today but the NYT still has a canadian bureau. "Might" be possible to pay in CAD without FX fee via the bureau's bank connections. I say "might," it would have to be a mass works-for-all solution, not an individual special case, & the times would have to design the protocol.

.

.


----------



## fireseeker (Jul 24, 2017)

Seahawk said:


> I signed up. After hitting the check out button they then said I would be charged $10.00 CAD per week because my credit card is Canadian. This is 1.90 USD per week which is close to the normal price of $2.00.
> 
> Cancelling is cumbersome. Must either call or chat to agent. Took a few minutes.


Strange experience. The NYT offer is directed at Canadians -- and clearly says $1 CAD per week. Perhaps you signed up through a US offer?

https://www.nytimes.com/subscription/inyt/lp8U87X.html


----------



## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

Mine is $1.05 CAD per week ($1 plus GST)


----------



## Seahawk (Jan 6, 2017)

Thanks for the replies. I am in Europe at the moment and I think the link knows that somehow. I will retry when back in Canada.


----------

