That’s the title of an article by Tim Carmody at the Nieman Journalism Lab. Here’s the beginning:
In the brief moment between last week’s unveiling of The New York Times’s new smartphone- and tablet-centered subscription plans and today’s launch of Amazon’s Android Appstore, it’s worth taking a short historical detour, if only to see how differently the world looks today from the time, not long ago, when the Kindle was supposed to be a big factor in getting people to pay for journalism.
First, an observation: the NYT’s new digital subscription plans don’t apply to Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s NookColor, or any other e-reader. The digital subscriptions FAQ spells it out: “At this time, we’re not able to connect your e-reader subscription to an NYTimes.com subscription. Each must be purchased separately.”
This is partly a result of earlier negotiations between the Times and the e-bookstores. But it’s clear that the NYT’s digital strategy today is focused on the web browser for the desktop and applications for mobile. E-reader subscriptions today, for better or worse, are minor players — legacy obligations. With that in mind, it helps to understand how we got here, and why.