The New York Times Magazine reported on Sunday that the New York Times was poised to start charging online, citing un-named sources close to the decision-makers. The NY Magazine claims that the paper is looking at a metered system, similar to that adopted by the Financial Times. Reactions from media commentators suggest that the paper should step carefully, however.

Reuters writer Felix Salmon is a big fan of the New York Times' site, and believes that "any kind of paywall implementation is going to result in a deterioration of the experience of using it."

"Making people pay for access will almost certainly scotch the NYTimes.com's position," believes Jennifer Saba of Editor & Publisher. She believes that "AOL, NPR, CNN smell blood and will most certainly angle for those readers to come and read news for free." She adds that it is "baffling" that the NYT is trying to charge online but is giving away its mobile app for free: "why not charge for an app and seed people's behavior now?"
Salmon hopes that "the NYT implements a good metered system, rather than the bad system adopted by the FT." The FT allows a certain amount of usage free, and then the paywall kicks in, while Salmon believes that a true metered approach should measure how much of the service you consume, and charge you for that, and no more.

Salmon guesses that when Apple releases its anticipated tablet device later this month, it will "unveil a system which makes it very easy to link your nytimes.com account to your iTunes account so that your NYT bill will simply get added on to your iTunes bill."

And he suggests that the NYT is an "invaluable source of information for many people around the world who don't have credit cards or iTunes accounts" and that the paper should never "bar content entirely from people who can't or won't pay," but should instead largely increase the amount of advertising that these people get served.

If the New York Times does come up with an innovative way of charging online, could that prompt others to do the same? The New York Post reported that billionaire Times investor Carlos Slim is in favour of online charging, and after months of consideration, paid online content is does seem to be clearly on the paper's agenda in some form.

Source: Reuters, Fitz&Jen, New York Post