Davenet: NY Times Pulls Back

"The original blogger" (or so he loves to claim) Dave Winer has an interesting piece today about how the The New York Times (which Dave derides as "the Microsoft of the news business") has apparently stopped supporting free direct URL links into its weblogs. The NYTimes.com has long charged for access to its archives when you navigate from the page, but until now, it allowed permanent links to remain active. This will disappoint many a weblogger. Dave writes:

All my links into the NY Times archive that are older than 30 days are broken. I suspected this day would come, eventually. Advertising doesn't pay for Web publications. It probably doesn't pay for print pubs either anymore.

The business model for news is gyrating wildly. So much uncertainty. But one thing is certain, the Times will be missed on the Web.