It took me less than four days to run nose-first into the new nytimes.com paywall. When the screen popped up, I felt both strangely guilty about consuming all this free journalism for years—but also totally peeved. It looked a little something like this:
Since March 28, the much-debated paywall put up by the New York Times—which now kicks in when you try to access more than 20 articles, photo galleries, videos or other pieces of content online per month—has ruffled a few feathers. If the idea of charging for content in our digital age edges on asinine to you, Princeton’s got your back.
Our friends over at Stokes Library tipped us off to Factiva, a research tool offered through the university, which provides full-text versions of stories appearing during the last two weeks in tons of major national and regional newspapers—including the New York Times. These digital versions don’t contain the enhanced web content, but if you want the pleasure of sneaking around the paywall, this is one way to do it. We’ve also heard that the library is currently discussing subscription options for the daily web edition, so stay tuned!
The Times gives its take on the policy most Princeton students love to hate (or just hate):
