The desperation of NYTimes

Another desperate practice. They have the teaser subscription at a very low rate and quietly hike it up after a year.

Whatever they're doing, whether to maintain growth or increase it, it's mostly working.

Just today coincidentally:

The New York Times Reaches Three Million Digital Subscribers Outside the U.S.

https://www.nytco.com/press/the-new-york-times-reaches-three...

And last month:

The New York Times Passes 13 Million Subscribers

> For the second quarter of 2026, the company forecast a 14 to 17 percent increase in digital-only subscription revenue

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/business/media/new-york-t...

I have a similar story with The Guardian. After I subscribed, I got bombarded with emails soliciting for more money. Immediately cancelled my subscription.

What’s worse is that this nonsense appears everywhere now. When I started donating blood at a blood bank, I got hammered by SMS and email seeking my attention for all sorts and begging me for more donations, sucking even more blood out of me. This is such a turn off that I stopped donating altogether.

> I earn a small fraction of what NYTimes earns. If I'm not desperate, why are they?

With all due respect, you are not responsible for covering every single thing the Trump administration is doing and ensuring they are held accountable. While simultaneously satisfying customers who are used to getting endless content for free, and sniff their noses at paying $2/month.

The journalism business is a hard business. I may not agree with everything NYT does, they are most certainly not perfect, but they are operating in good faith and trying their best. Give them a break

What's with these journals all being so hostile? I remember years ago i tried to delete my Washington Post account - there was no button anywhere in the settings menu though, only: text if you want your data deleted. I texted them, they asked back, do you live in a GDPR region? I said no, they replied well tough luck. Insane

There is plenty of biased and misleading information on the Internet, I can't imagine paying the NYT to get it from them.

Corporate desperation seems to be on the rise. So many products try to convince, beg, nudge, trick, and dark-pattern you into buying or even just interacting with them. They're all like clingy puppy dogs, begging for you to notice them, read their spam and be part of their ecosystem. Microsoft is one of the worst--forcing you to do things, begging you to do other things, forgetting that you opted out, and just in general nagging users to death about everything.

C'mon developers, stand up to marketing for a change and stop writing these software nags.

NYTimes was the only subscription in well over a decade that was just sitting there collecting money when we thought we'd canceled it. It was for some crossword type app game, but it was just eating ~$7 monthly without any use. The only reason I noticed was my credit card bill. I really, really hate subscriptions.

Since a few years I find it hard to not associate to Julius Streicher at the mention of NYT.

Yeah, in short, don’t support the NYT. Their business practices are predatory and unethical. Use archive.ph to get by paywalls.

Hmm. I also recently got a subscription to the NYT. I noticed they sent me a lot of email so I just filtered it with the click of a couple buttons. It's obnoxious but in the minor way that having to click a couple buttons one time is.

Just earlier I opened 404 Media's subscribe page and was going to spend sometime after work subscribing to them, NYTimes, and maybe a couple others. It's past time I pay for some news media.

This has guaranteed I will not even consider NYTimes for the foreseeable future. So disrespectful.

It was almost impossible to unsubscribe a few years ago. Seems like not much has changed.

Who still reads emails?

Feel powerless? Set up a filter.

I used to subscribe, but the quality of the journalism absolutely plummeted around 2020.

Another example of being user-hostile is that they put videos on the front page that autoplay and can't be paused. I will not renew either.

“It made me feel powerless.”

Your problem. Read some of Michael Porter’s books on competition. In an economic interaction, all players compete with each other. The Times thinks it’s in its interest to try to brainwash you with some garbage.

And you look for Mommy.

Tech means things should get progressively better.

Why don't companies see that people will pay a reasonable amount for better things, but making it worse and charging too much means people will go elsewhere ?

We have seen through the enshittification, IBM, NYT, HP, Netflix, etc. etc.

NYT is a cancer on American society. Worst tho, it's described as a "liberal" news source, but over the course of it's long history it's done just about all it can to stab "liberals" in the back. All thinking people should avoid NYT at all costs (which is free to do).

> They probably think it's a clever marketing copy. It's not. It made me feel powerless. It put a sour taste in my mouth.

Jesus fucking christ. Somebody call the whaaaambulance

NYTimes is not unique, but yes, they are a for-profit entity focused on audience building and audience retention. Their audience tends to be liberal leaning types, and so their aim is to produce content for that audience. This particular example is disgusting.

My suggestion is subscribe to Breaking Points or try them for free on YouTube. You won't get the breadth of content given their scale, but you will get a more honest approach to delivering news.

Everybody is obnoxious about emails now. I got "invited to complete a survey about my applicant experience" FROM A COMPANY THAT GHOSTED ME AFTER INTERVIEWS! fuck them!

I'm going to a baseball game soon. Naturally, 3 survey links, none with unsubscribe, because naturally i want a relationship with the team, their facilities, and their ticket vendor, naturally.

Email was a mistake, frankly.

If you needed another reason to unsubscribe, the NYT has been a persistent peddler in American propaganda to the point that they arent willing to issue corrections for even their most falsified pieces. Their behavior since the start of the Gaza genocide has been particularly disgusting.

More info: https://writersagainstthewarongaza.com/boycott-nyt

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Not sure what the author is bitching about. They’re a one-time series of email messages over 14 days.

They are transactional emails. Maybe the author doesn’t agree with that but they’re welcome to take NYT to court over it.

Is their email provider charging you per email or something?

Let's just stop the shenanigans and just already have the CIA finance it directly...

Beneath a veneer of respectability the NYT has always been a rag. In Steven Levy's "Hackers" he mentioned MIT stidents were calling it the New York Slime back in the 70s.

I just gave up on reading respectable news outlet like NY Times. I decided to just get it from "fringe" Youtube channels: Danny Haiphong, Dialogue Works with Nima, The Jimmy Dore Show. Recently, former CIA analyst, Larry Johnson, worked with Pepe Escobar and Zulfiqar Ali to vet a source saying Iran has 1 or 2 nuclear weapons. Let's see how long it will take the NY Times to avoid/deny/confirm that story.