Have you also stoppped reading The Times online?

[gingercat12]

Apparently online readership of The Times dramatically plummetted since the introduction of the paywall 3 weeks ago. Guardian article www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/20/times-paywall-readership
I know it is hardly surprising, but I wonder if it has changed our online news reading habits.

I used to read the timesonline, but decided not to pay.

I don't read it anymore. I used to read it from time to time but not enough to justify paying for it. I like to read a range of papers online so now I just read the others.

I don't read it anymore. I enquired about setting up a corporate subscription for the place where I work but the general view was that it wasn't the paper it used to be and the Guardian would do fine.

I wouldn't pay. I just read different online news.

I used to read it everyday, more or less. I live overseas and having bought the TImes paper when I lived in UK in the past, loved the online version. I was really pissed off when they decided to charge. No way will I pay. I do miss some of the columnists / articles, but there are plenty of other news resources out there...

Yes-partly due to paywall but have also stopped buying it since the Tories got in-I could tolerate the Tory slant when they weren't in power but now I would feel queasy. I miss Labour supporting India Knight, and Janice Turner and Osbourne bashing Caitlin Moran.

I never read the Times online.

I buy it on Saturadys and Sundays anyway.

Never thought the Times website was any good - badly designed in my view.

I used to read it now and then, to "top up" and provide a slightly different view to my usual Guardian reading. Haven't been back since the paywall - there's plenty of other free news out there and I'm a fickle cheapskate of the digital age!

Yes I've stopped.

I wan't interested in it enough to pay but would glance at it especially if a MNer had linked and article I would check that out and then linger on other subjects for a while.

Would browse it occasionally or follow a link to it but no way would I pay. You can get your news elsewhere....

I stopped. We still have the paper copy in the office and yesterday's headline reminded me of the sort of headline I'd expect to see in The Sun. It is not the paper it was and there are good online alternatives.

Yes

I loved the Times online. Best online paper. Might have to get round to paying for it.

It might in the end be the saving of the Times - I can certainly see the logic. There are markets for whom the Times is essential, primarily lawyers because of the law reports, so their online business will become increasingly corporate; people who have access at work will continue to read its leisure sections as well. Bingo: an increasingly upmarket and wealthy readership that advertisers will pay serious bucks for well-thought-out access to (by which I mean they presumably won't scatter random ads all over the paid-for site, but there will be more advertorial/promotional work). It will be increasingly worth News Int'ls while to provide expensive specific information services to capture more of those markets (not all of which might be corporate I suppose - they could bundle in access to, I don't know, super-top-university admissions info or whatever, plus perhaps occasional newsworthy features that will bring in a few paywall subscribers, and less worth their while to provide endless Polly Filla shit of the 'I love my home baking SAHM life' 'I'm the first Dad ever to notice he has a baby' 'Whither Sex and the City' variety.

I stopped reading it a while back. Such twaddle.

I decided to stop lining Murdoch's pockets because I think he's a misogynist twat.

Maktaitai - am sure you are right.

Hopefully the upshot will be the getting rid of a few of their dimmer columnists (Daisy Waugh, anyone?)

Rosie Millard, too, GetOrf. Actually, I can't tell the difference between her and Daisy, even physically. They look like clones and are equally worthless excuses for people.

Oh god yes. I think the whole of Rosie Millard's career has been built on that appearance at the Oscars where she wore a low cut dress.

Minette Marin as well. Piss orf.

I always used to read the Times online, but haven't bothered paying for it. I now look at the Guardian online instead. This is also tipping over into my physical paper buying too, I always bought the Times at weekends but since reading the Guardian online I have been buying the Observer on a Sunday too.

I've stopped, not because I object to paying for content, but because it would be a faff (enter more bank details, another password etc). It has made me buy the actual paper a bit more though, as I like to get a variety of views.

My theory is that it is all an elaborate excuse to scrap the content-free Sunday Times. I bet you can count the number of subscribers to the Sunday Times website on one hand.

Maktaitai, I can see your arguement, but there are already plenty of alternatives to the kind of business and professional orientated services you mention. Murdoch himself already owns the Wall St Journal and Dow Jones, for example. Difficult to see how the Times could maintain its identity if they went in that direction. But maybe the plan is to merge it all.

I don't think it is possible to replace the sunday times online - the whole pleasure of it is wallowing in acres of paper and all the supplements.

matsikula yes I guess you're right. Who owns the FT [clueless]?

Pearson, who also own Penguin and various educational publishers.

And I also love wallowing in piles of paper and supplements on Sunday, but I could never fit an open copy of the Sunday Times on my breakfast room table alongside the tea and toast.

Yes, I stopped. Used to enjoy looking at some of the articles and the general news on there. I buy an actual physical copy of the Times 3-4 times a week and am not prepared to pay for access online.

It's not like there are no other alternatives available for free on the net...

Yes, Ive stopped. I still by Sat and Sun Times but won't subscribe to the online stuff.
As awriter, I can kinda see why it doesn't mkae sense to give our work away, but I just don't think folks will pay for the sort of stuff that was online as it's easily found elsewhere.