The New York Times is raising a ruckus with the recent announcement that it would begin to offer some content under a subscription-only model. Starting in September, you must subscribe to the $49.95/year TimesSelect service to access Op-Ed columnists and news columnists. (TimesSelect also includes access to TimesPast, the InterPukeCaps name for "archives".) The rest of the material on the site will remain available for free to registered users.

Megnut argues that this move is simply begging for fewer blog links to the Times. And since links are the currency of the web, with power to affect accessibility and knowledge on the web, the Times's sphere of influence will begin to shrink. Case in point: the Wall Street Journal, which has placed the entirety of its online content behind a $79/year subscription model, is being ignored even by its own subscribers simply because they can't share links with their community of friends and/or fellow bloggers.

But will the modified move of the New York Times really have the same effects of lowered traffic, currency, and therefore influence?

Let's take a look at typical New York Times linkage. Jason Kottke, the web geeks' portal to geekery and beyond, posts somewhere between a handful and a dozen noteworthy links each day in addition to his own content. A search of this link archive from January 2005 through today yields 77 links to Times articles. Of the 6 Op-Ed articles (I searched for "/opinion/" in the collected source code), 6 were by an "Op-Ed Contributor". Even under the new commie web subscription regime of 2005, every single New York Times article that Kottke linked to this year would still be free.

An "Op-Ed Columnist" or "News Columnist" discusses long-range policy or examines a recent political event's historical context or future implications. The majority of blogs tend to be transmitters of either direct, instant news ("Ginormous Tsunami Hits Southeast Asia 32 Minutes Ago") or more general human-interest stories (Kottke: 18 of 77 to the Magazine section). Most important: The type of blog linking to deep policy discussions by Friedman, Krugman, or Dowd serve an policy-wonking audience that already subscribes to the print version (TimesSelect is free with a print subscription) or would gladly pay for online access anyway.

Sure, the New York Times could do plenty to give readers easier access to existing free content (Paul Ford makes some excellent points). But frankly, their careful division of what will be free from what will be subscription-only seems to leave plenty of leeway for bloggers to keep spreading the good (and left-wing establishment!) word.

(N.B. I spent about 25 minutes poking in the New York Times site structure and end matter. While I'm fairly convinced that my interpretations of (1) who is a "Columnist" and (2) their news release are correct, please holler if they're not and let's find out if that affects the above rough analysis. Ditto for the Kottke's links survey.)