NYT to wall off the Op-Eds

Read it and weep, folks. Not so much because we will miss the columnists per se (or are you going to fork over $49.95 per annum?), but because it will make the NYT pretty much irrelevant in a world of omnipresent (if lower quality) content and omnipresent (if less intelligent) opinion.

The NYT were - are - world leaders, but the Company will find it impossible to maintain their leadership from within a walled bastion.

Believe-it-or-not quote from the Publisher, the 4th-generation Arthur Ochs "Pinch" Sulzberger:

The advertising growth on the Web has been just spectacular the last few years. But like any business, it's going to mature over time, and when that happens, it will flatten and then you'll get into the normal cycles just like we do it on print. And at that point you're really going to need to have another revenue model.

In other words, the main reason why they are switching to paid subscriptions now is that web advertising revenue has been increasing too quickly. Way to read the tea leaves, Pinch - charging for access is sure going to take care of that problem!