The end of the New York Times appeared to me tonight in the form of a pop-up box.

For well over 15 years I’ve been a regular reader of the New York Times online. Tonight I went to their site and was greeted with a pop-up box offering me content I’ve been getting for free for a decade and a half at a price: $190 a year.

This is certainly the kiss of death for the old gray lady. Advertisers will flee the Times like rats from a sinking ship. And the content that they’re charging for will be available for free elsewhere within moments after its uploaded to the net.

Dumb fucking move.

Last year, The Times of London and its sister paper, the Sunday Times of London, put an ironclad pay wall around their digital content. People could not read articles unless they had paid for the access or were print subscribers too. The online audience for the two papers plummeted from 20 million monthly unique online readers to a little more than 100,000.”

20 million readers to 100,000!  Advertisers must have loved that.