My column in this week’s print TIME is about the New York Times’ plan to begin charging (some people, something) to read it on the Web starting next year. Seemingly by design, it doesn’t look like the plan would raise too much money at first. It’s more important symbolically: the country’s most authoritative (and argued-about) newspaper is more or less declaring that, if old media don’t figure out a way to get paid online, it’s game over. What would the blogosphere do without the New York Times to kick around?
My column, by the way, only glancingly mentions the Times’ plans for old media’s other Great E-Hope, the Apple iPad, but you can find my colleague Josh Quittner’s take on that here. I’m more skeptical: are people going to be more likely to pay for online subscriptions after kicking out $500-800 for a device? But I sure hope Steve Jobs proves me wrong.
