Is the New York Times Subscription Worth It?
I just got the Sunday Delivery option from the New York Times, which includes a digital subscription and the big Sunday paper which includes quite a bit.
The Sunday Delivery is about $10/week after the promotion and it includes the Sunday Magazine, Book Review, Travel, Sunday Styles, Sunday Review, and the full Digital Subscription. These are all things that I would enjoy.
My usual routine of reading the New York Times is to quickly use up my 10 free articles on both my work laptop (Internet Explorer) and my home computer (Chrome) which is about 20 free articles. Then I use Google News to try and read more (usually allows you to get around paywalls).
This was getting a bit annoying to me plus I felt that I wasn’t reading as much as I should. So in order to understand if $10/week, which translates to $520/year or $5200/10 years (assuming no price raise), is worth the price of my readership I wrote this article.
In order to quantify if this subscription is worth it I’ll attempt to chronicle at least my first few days of readership by posting links to all the stories that I’ve perused, read, skimmed, or just look at the pictures. I’ve felt that this was always a luxury, but in a rapidly changing world I feel that this is actually a necessity. See below for my attempt at quantification to understand if that feeling is correct.
Stories from 12/29/2017 through 1/1/2018 perhaps even a small summary if I have the time:
Trump Says Russia Inquiry Makes U.S. ‘Look Very Bad’
Related articles about how large cities no longer need smaller cities or towns and the death of rural communities. I will do a separate post on what I think about that situation.
Chef Gives Up a Star, Reflecting Hardship of ‘the Other France’: Most people can’t afford to even eat at a one Michelen star restaurant once or twice a year let alone with some regularity. I see this as an indicator of a changing world and perhaps even a harbinger of ghost towns in these once prosperous areas.
The Wall Street Journal wrote about this as well from a more analytics side on how crime is dropping in cities and the benefits of a rural life are declining when compared to cities.
The Gambler’s Ruin of Small Cities (Wonkish): An opinion piece by Krugman, but it echoes the two stories above in that there seems to be a global phenomena of towns and smaller cities going into decline.
What Happens When the Richest U.S. Cities Turn to the World?: The story Krugman was writing in response to about how large cities no longer need small cities. The supply chains of manufacturing that once knit our nation together have faded and with that fading those small towns and cities fade as well.
No-Knead Bread: I made it and it was quite good! Definitely going to be making this with some regularity. My crust wasn’t well developed, perhaps a longer time in the oven.
Unfiltered Fervor: The Rush to Get Off the Water Grid
America, Can We Talk About Your Drinking?
Is It Better to Cook With Coconut Oil or Olive Oil?
Republican Attacks on Mueller and F.B.I. Open New Rift in G.O.P.
11 Stocks Rattled by Amazon in 2017
Spielberg’s ‘The Post’ Provides Fitting End to Turbulent Year for the Media: Also my pick for best picture awards and best actress
Readers React to the New ‘Seven Wonders of the World’
We Asked 615 Men About How They Conduct Themselves at Work
Iran State TV: 12 Killed in Protests, Attacks on Security
Partisans, Wielding Money, Begin Seeking to Exploit Harassment Claims
The Year in Fitness: Exercise, Add Intensity, Live to See Another Year
Overall I think I will let this experiment run for another 6 months and if I don’t find anymore value I will cancel.
As of right now I see immense value in the New York Times subscription and this is just detailing the online subscription at present. I’m just getting tired of copying and pasting links into Medium. I am excited for the physical Sunday paper at the start of next week. The quality of journalism in any major newspaper is going to be phenomenal and I think worth the money. I tried The Economist, but I wasn’t a big fan.
What newspapers do you subscribe to or what online publications do you think are worth the money? Leave a comment below with any good suggestions.
