New York Times goes paywall

Ok, so the much threatened paywall for the New York Times seems set to go in the US on March 28 (as of today, March 17, in Canada). The gist of it is that "visitors" will get free access to up to 20 articles on line per month, but after that, you will be barred from accessing articles. Except when you access them through Facebook links.

Sulzberger's letter, and the accompanying FAQ is a bit thin on the details. They don't, for example, tell us how they're going enforce that limit of 20 articles per month. I suspect that's because if they did, every script kiddie in the universe, not to mention a fair number of minimally computer-savvy readers would figure out how to circumvent it before it even gets rolled out.

I have some very fundamental questions about the new subscription based service.

Is that limit of 20 person-based? computer-based? IP address based? If it's computer based (i.e. each PC gets access to 20 articles per month), that could mean that I as an individual get access to almost nothing, if I'm sharing the computer with, say, my spouse and kids or roommates. Is that what they really had in mind? If it's individual-based, how are they going to track that I personally accessed 20 this month, without making me log in first? I can't see "visitors" wanting to register for a free account and then logging in just so they can access those 20 articles. I don't think the NYT can see that, either, so I imagine that the tracking mechanism will be minimally invasive, and therefore easy to get around. I'd have to guess it will either be cookie-based (circumvent by deleting cookies?) or IP based (which will have the unpleasant effect of limiting the number of accesses to 20 spread out over all users, but circumventable by going to a different computer -- especially good if using wireless access, I imagine).

Also, does 20 articles mean 20 distinct articles, each of which I can re-read as often as I like? Or does it mean that if I return to re-read the same article 20 times (I sometimes like Paul Krugman or Roger Cohen that much :-), I can't read anything else?

I find it very interesting that they have explicitly excluded links accessed from social media from the 20 articles/month limit. I would have to guess that there is some money flow from Facebook to the NYT -- I'd love to know what the agreement is. But the text of the letter does not provide an exhaustive list of social media sites, which would lead us to believe that it's a blanket policy.

Readers who come to Times articles through links from search, blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter will be able to read those articles, even if they have reached their monthly reading limit. For some search engines, users will have a daily limit of free links to Times articles.

I just can't believe they'd allow something like that for Joe's Pizza and Social Networking Emporium, without some financial agreement in place. So perhaps it won't hold for some social media sites.

Guess I'd better go catch a leprechaun, to start paying for digital subscriptions!