Free Columns
This reader email suggests that "Times Select" is costing the NYT more readers than it's supposed to.
Why are you still giving us only links to your NYT columns?
Now that we have to pay for access to the Times on line, most of us do not do so, and can no longer read Times stories or columns.
If you want us to read them, you'll have to post them on another server. If the Times won't let you, then I for one have no reason to read your stuff, anyway.
I know that you get paid for your writing, so my demanding to read it for free can sound churlish. But you were being paid before; the only difference now is the NYT on-line policy.
If the Times had in fact put my columns behind its pay-only wall, that would reduce the value of the column to me and essentially cut my pay. But that hasn't happened. My columns, like the vast, vast majority of NYT articles, are still available for free. And that, apparently, is exactly what they're worth to some people. (With my editor's permission, I do maintain an archive of columns on this site. The Times, however, owns all the reprint rights.)