I signed up for the free 12 week offer of digital access to The New York Times a few weeks ago. Last night, this offer arrived by email. 75% off home delivery for 12 weeks. They do not filter out people overseas – until you click on the link and it breaks.
The 75% off cover price is an amazing deal for the second step deal after 3 months free access as it includes home delivery. I can’t see how they make money from this with ad revenue down and distribution costs that cannot be cut further.
Pricing like this from any newspaper publisher, and there are plenty doing it, makes we think they are in a race to the bottom. Once they get there they will urgently need a completely different business model.