The NYT has been the paper of record in the US for a very long time. To me, the strategy just seems very short sighted.
There is no doubt in my mind that the paywall will ultimately lead to the paper’s decline. The prestige of The NYT as an institution is that everyone reads it. That cannot be the case on the Internet when competing with voluminous free content.
At the very least, all the frontpage articles should not be paywalled. Even historically one could read the most important Times’ articles just glancing at a newsstand.
That's a scan of the printed version. You can look at the front page (nytimes.com) for free, but you need a subscription if you want to read more free articles than a limit allocated to non-subscribers. "Paywalled" means you can't read the full article, it's hidden or truncated.
Those are links to articles, not the full articles themselves. Similar to the "continued on page x" in the printed version, you will need to go to the full article to read its contents.
There is no doubt in my mind that the paywall will ultimately lead to the paper’s decline. The prestige of The NYT as an institution is that everyone reads it. That cannot be the case on the Internet when competing with voluminous free content.
At the very least, all the frontpage articles should not be paywalled. Even historically one could read the most important Times’ articles just glancing at a newsstand.