New York Times Clarifies “Pay-Wall Rules” - Most People Still Confused

Posted 03/22/2011 at 12:14pm | by Justin Kerr

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Several content companies have experimented with “Pay-Walls”, but the ongoing NYT implementation reminds us why they never seem to work, they are just too bloody complicated. According to PR representatives the previously announced five article limit which was to be applied to “Google Only” referrals, are now instead being extended to all search engines. The company attempted to explain the communication confusion over current policies by admitting that some limitations are currently being tested in Canada, and may be different than what they eventually end up implementing.

We suspect the reason why search engines are being singled out is so the company can continue to benefit from social networking referrals courtesy of Facebook and Twitter, while blocking links for people actively seeking out the content. Either way someone’s already figured out a way to bypass this entire system by using four lines of Javascript so the tech savvy have little to worry about. I give it about a week before this hack gets converted into a handy Firefox extension.

The rules surrounding the pay-wall continue to change, and we can’t help but worry that this alone could be responsible for hurting its success with hordes of confused consumers. One way or another though, this is one of the largest pay-wall experiments in the history of the web, and its success or failure will ultimately influence countless other old media companies who struggle to stay relevant in a digital world.