So, how’s the paywall doing over at The New York Times?

Rather nicely, is the answer:

I’m particularly glad that the NYT has proven that a very porus  paywall can work — one in which just about anybody online can read just about any NYT article for free very easily. The media business has never been about denying access to people who want to read your publication, but the paywalls at News Corp, as well as the one at the FT, are based around that model. The NYT, by contrast, has proven that people will pay even if the paywall is extremely porous.

Okay it’s still lower than print revenue ($100 million against £2 billion per year), but it’s not just about the raw money (at the moment), it’s about education, working out best practices, and gaining experience of this new and evolving space. quite frankly any newspaper not at least experimenting with this idea is running the risk of a knowledge gap a few years down the line.