[SensualPoet]

I agree The Times has unique content that might be "monetized". But I still believe this is a short-sighted model and ultimately damaging to the "Times brand" in the long term.

The value of a newspaper lies in its reputation and that only is maintained if the newspaper is seen and heard on a daily basis. Placing the majority of content behind a pay-wall degrades that reputation over time by being seen less.

Some papers, and I believe The Times is adding this "feature", think tying free web access to physical newspaper home delivery is a good idea. But that limits who gets access and once again degrades the reach of the newspaper's reputation.

Newspapers have at least five qualities that set them apart from other news sources: 1) archives, recent and historic; 2) columnists, house journalists; 3) geographic, political "anchor"; 4) aggregation and filtering of daily news; 5) print advertising, local and national. It's easy to prove; here are some quick examples.

1a) Archives, historic - the coverage of local events in the 1850s and 1930s -- The Times, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune have unique offerings.
1b) Archives, recent - the coverage of any events over the past 2 weeks or month -- different voices and POV that is still relevant to the unfolding story
2) Columnists, house journalists -- not the syndicated voices but the ones tied to the press's imprint -- you want to read Woodward and Bernstein at the Washington Post first and in any case these are the folks, some much less famous, which set the tone of the publication and its appeal for you
3) Geographic, Political Anchor -- a paper is valued because it reflects a British or German or Canadian POV -- what are they thinking in Singapore from a Singapore POV?; the same argument applies to liberal and conservative (vis. The Times vs. The Independent)
4) Aggregation -- it's not willy nilly. "I read it in the New York Times so it must be true!" (or untrue ...!). This is partly reputation and partly expectations of what one is likely to find. The Huffington Post vs BBC News Online vs New York Post ... it's possible they will all report on the same story but the collection of stories of the day will be radically different. What's important to the press at hand -- the filtering in the aggregation process -- is what drives value.
5) Print Advertising -- often left out in online editions, they survive in pdf "whole newspaper" editions and include display ads from businesses, advocacy advertising and classifieds including personals.

Remove any of the above from sight through a paywall and, bit-by-bit, you risk eroding the reputation and long-term value of the newspaper. Reputation isn't a "nice to have" -- it's also the gold which brings access to the inaccessible. Who's phone call is likely to be returned first at the White House? The New York Times or the New York Post?

Monetizing these different aspects of a newspaper's online edition is tricky and no one has found a solution. But one principle ought to guide the bean counters: less is not necessarily more. Tread with caution and charge where you can add value to the consumer experience without hacking away at the foundations of the press itself.