Skip to main content

The New York Times offering discounted digital subscriptions as part of today’s paywall launch

New York Times iPad AppAt 2 o’clock this afternoon, The New York Times‘s online home, nytimes.com, will begin requiring that “heavy consumers” pay to continue accessing content on the site. In order to help users acclimate to the idea, The Times will be initially offering deeply discounted subscription plans of $0.99 for the first four weeks of access. After the first month is up, users will begin paying the full amount for their subscription plan of choice.

Here’s how the three plans that The Times is offering break down:

  • For $15 per month, unlimited access of nytimes.com plus unlimited access through The New York Times app for iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android.
  • For $20 per month, unlimited access of nytimes.com plus access Unlimited access to the New York Times apps for the iPad, the Chrome Web Store and the Times Reader 2.0.
  • For $35 per month, all of the above (website access, smartphone apps and tablet apps).
Recommended Videos

All plans will be initially offered for $0.99 and all will include unlimited access to nytimes.com through mobile Web browsers (just not necessarily access through native apps). Those with print subscriptions to either The New York Times or to The International Herald Tribune will be granted full access to all digital content without having to pay any additional fees.

Non-subscribing users will be allowed to access up to 20 articles a month before being required to pay for additional access. The paywall structure does include a significant loophole of sorts: content that is accessed through blog links or social media sites won’t count against the 20-per-month limit. That means that if you’re willing to comb through Twitter for your news fix (as many of us are already in the habit of doing), you can effectively continue to get free, unlimited access to nytimes.com — just without the convenience of being able to do so directly through the site’s homepage.

Aemon Malone
Former Digital Trends Contributor
OpenAI’s GPT-4 might be coming to an end. Here’s why that’s actually good news
OpenAI's new typeface OpenAI Sans

OpenAI has seen many changes in recent weeks, and more are quickly coming. The AI company has yet to confirm the launch of its upcoming GPT-5 AI model. However, it is making room for its planned model by ending support for other models in its lineup. OpenAI recently announced that it is retiring its GPT-4 AI model as of April 30. GPT-4 stood as one of the brand’s most popular and longest-running large language models. However, the company has already shifted its focus away from its original large language model technology and more toward its series of reasoning models and other technologies in recent months. 

The brand has also made some interesting moves by introducing a new GPT 4.1 model family, strictly as an API for developers, while simultaneously indicating plans to sunset the recently launched GPT-4.5 model and also releasing the o3 and o4 reasoning models. While not yet confirmed, these moves appear to propel the GPT-5 timeline closer to launch.

Read more
I tried using a paid search engine for a week, and I don’t think I’ll go back
Kagi search bar in light mode.

After making the decision to ditch Google Search a few months ago, I've been making it a point to keep an eye out for new products to try. Amusingly, it took me quite a while to realize there are actually paid search engines out there, but once I knew about them, I was instantly interested.

I decided to try one out for just a week to see how it felt -- I had already improved my search situation a lot by switching my default engine to Qwant, so what I really wanted to know was how much extra benefit I could get from a paid service.

Read more
My favorite web browser is one you’ve probably ignored – and you shouldn’t
Opera browser on a laptop.

The world of web browsers is divided across some deep fault lines. On one hand, you have Chrome and Safari, which are clearly segregated across ecosystems and command the lion’s share of the market. Edge is a distant third, while Firefox and Brave are mostly tied to small enthusiast communities. 

Then we have new entrants like Arc, which are trying to radically reimagine the concept of a web browser. Smushed between the big players and small fish, we have the Opera browser. It has been around for a while, but in the past couple of years, it has really picked up the pace of innovation.

Read more