New (York Times) Business Model.

Last Monday at midnight (Tuesday 0400 GMT), the New York Times stopped charging for access to certain articles (like the op-eds) and archives on its web site, thus completely reversing their business plan which they only implemented 2 years ago.

Apparently, there is more money to be made by advertisement than paid-subscribers.

"...our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising," said Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of the site, NYTimes.com.
The newspaper decided more page views and ad revenue could be generated by "indirect readers" coming via search engines and links from other sites.
"What wasn't anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others," Schiller said, declining to project revenue or say how much increased traffic the paper expects by ending the charges.
(AFP)

So is this be the beginning of a new (viable) business model?
Well, Murdoch, the media tycoon, is also considering giving free access to The Wall Street Journal (which he owns), the WSJ being the only other major US newspaper to charge for acccess to most articles on its website. If Murdoch does it, it may be a sign.