Dept. Of Bad Ideas: NYT.com To Put Blogs Behind Paywall

Normally speaking, I happen to think the NYT is generally a step ahead of the game when it comes to online content, so this is puzzling. I missed it last week, but apparently the NYT.com many blogs are going to be behind the metered paywall the Times is planning on launching next year.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this changed, since when the news broke in a Q&A last week there seemed to be some confusion over the details. But even the fact the NYT.com is considering it seems like a huge misstep. I understand their need to put the paper’s print content behind a paywall (though along with everyone else, I worry it will do some damage to their relevance) but the blogs? That’s just silly. That’s the same sort of thinking that got them into the whole Timeselect debacle. Reuters Felix Salmon was also amazed by the news:

That shocked me: blogs rely on loyal readers who come back to read them often. But few blog readers are loyal enough to pay for the privilege of reading that blog. And if you’re someone who participates regularly in the Freakonomics comments section, for instance, you’re going to be very annoyed if you’re forced to buy a subscription to the entire nytimes.com site in order to do so.

My guess is that if Nisenholtz does this, a lot of the branded blogs on nytimes.com, including both Freakonomics and Paul Krugman, will simply leave and set (back) up on their own. It’s possible that the NYT digital team could quietly exempt those blogs from the meter, but it’s important with any system like this to be transparent about which pages count and which don’t, and carving out exceptions could quickly make things far too complicated to be easily comprehensible.

Of course one of the NYT.com strengths is its ability to roll with the punches and stick with things that are working and drop things that don’t. Also, this paywall is still a ways off, and as I said, I wouldn’t be surprised if it got dropped in the interim. I certainly hope so, anyway.