Subscription or free, that is the question…

Zubin Jelveh put down in words some thoughts about the decision at the New York Times to make previously subscription-based Times Select articles open to everyone. On his Odd Numbers blog his post The TimesSelect Effect gives some traffic data about NYTimes.com and other news sites, and ends with “So is 1.3 billion worth page views $20 million over two years? Not knowing anything about their inventory, I’d argue yes.”

I’d argue that looking forward, if I knew I could get 1.3 billion page views, and sell them for $20 million, this is a question worth asking. Looking backward, I don’t think that you can value things that simply to determine if the strategy of limiting access was the correct strategy. Did the nature or quality of the work change because it was a limited release? Did the quality of the work increase because someone was paying for it? If so, was it because there was budget available that could be charged against the revenue?

If so, is there further benefit of releasing to the public that which was developed in private, so to speak?