{"id":23951,"date":"2025-08-29T11:51:56","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T16:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=23951"},"modified":"2025-08-29T12:14:32","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T17:14:32","slug":"paywall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=23951","title":{"rendered":"Paywall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today I hit a paywall for two previously free NYT<\/em> puzzles: Letter Boxed and the Mini. It put a damper on my day to have my usual round of puzzles cut short. I wasn’t terribly surprised by it, though. I’d been expecting something like that to happen. Naturally the newspaper wants people to buy subscriptions, because they need to make money. So now the question is, do I want to do that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pros:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Supporting the puzzle makers, editors, and solving community. This is a strong pro!<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Supporting a major news outlet. God knows we need a free press, and if we don’t pay for it now, someday we’re going to “pay for it.”<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. The current price is good ($18 for a year of Games or $1 per week for unlimited NYT<\/em> access for 6 months). Maybe too good. It used to cost $50 for a year of Games, and I thought it was excessive to charge that much on top of<\/em> the newspaper subscription. IMHO, the newspaper subscription should include everything, or at least get you a discount on the extras. But $18 for Games alone is selling themselves too cheap, and it worries me.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Cons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    1. Spending more time on puzzles each day, as will inevitably happen if I get more access to them (like I don’t already devote enough of my time to puzzles!).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. Spending money on something I don’t need at a time when I should be trying to spend less.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. Supporting the NYT<\/em>, which I’d previously quit for a reason. I trust them (mostly) to give us accurate news, but I don’t trust their motives or allegiances, which is why I added “(mostly).”<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    4. It irks me to be strong-armed. They’re trying to force me to do something, and my inner rebel is like, “Screw you, I don’t need your stinking puzzles anyway!”<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Hmm. Gotta think about this for a while. But I am leaning toward buying a subscription.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Today I hit a paywall for two previously free NYT puzzles: Letter Boxed and the Mini. It put a damper on my day to have my usual round of puzzles cut short. I wasn’t terribly surprised by it, though. I’d … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23951"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23951"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23953,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23951\/revisions\/23953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}