For years, I have daily Wall Street Journal at my door steps. I hated it when rain soaked throught the plastic wrap and ruined the paper. Calling was not really interesting, since all they could do was extending my subscription for an extra day. Delivering another copy would be meaningless, by the time the paper arrived, I wouldn’t have wanted to read it anymore. I was glad that they offer wsj.com to paper subscribers: not the same as holding the real thing, but good enough for infrequent substitutes.
When I was living in China, I did not want to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal Asian edition. So I switched to International Herald Tribute. Soon, I started visiting NYTimes.com regularly. I gladly gave my email address and enjoyed the free online news paper several times a week. It was natural that I installed NYTimes app on my iPod soon after.
Several days ago, an updated NYTimes app informed me that this distinguished news paper is no longer free online. I would have to pay for unlimited access.
Visitors get 20 free articles (including blog posts, slide shows, video and other multimedia features) each calendar month on NYTimes.com, as well as access to browse the home page, section fronts, blog fronts and classifieds. Subscribers enjoy unrestricted access to all of the content on NYTimes.com, and 100 Archive articles every four weeks. Also note that NYTimes apps are free to download and install, and they include the Top News section for free. Subscribers get unlimited access to all sections within the app.
I am leaning on deleting the app and start searching for a free online news paper. So far, I have San Jose Mercury and LA Times. I will also give Seattle Times a try, but it is definitely more local.