Finally the New York Times has eliminated its pay sections and opened up its archives (or most of them anyway) to search engine and other linking traffic. It's interesting that the Times gets "far more [unique visitors] than any other newspaper site." Is it possible this count includes abortive search engine hits that have yielded only frustration for most readers?
It also sounds like some of the columnists were frustrated at being sequestered as premium content -- although the article is quick to point out that some of them still have avid followings. I'm sure they're less influential than they would have been without TimesSelect, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. My life has probably been the better for not having read Paul Krugman, David Brooks, and Tom Friedman in two years!
Here's my post about the whole business two years ago when they first implemented it.
MORE: Kottke has a great rundown of the content you can now read that you couldn't before.
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