A few days ago I got an ominous message from the NYT website when I went to read a story about political page-turners for this election season. That's one of the things I like about the Times. Their cultural articles tend to be pretty interesting and insightful. That the message popped up on this article, saying I had used all but 5 of my 20 free reads for the month of January, was pretty good salesmanship. Would I rather not read this article and ones like it? What about all the books and movies I'd miss out on? Hmmm.  

I looked into the price. Too high! I'll worry about it later. 

And later never came.  

Looking at my linkblog stats page for 2012, I can see that I've already passed on 14 links to NYT articles in January. That must mean I've read lots more than my allotted 20. A bug in their paywall, perhaps? 

Not complaining.  

And I don't see myself using one of the circumventions. Either I pay, or go without. 

But it seems we could come to some kind of arrangement. Or a discount. After all I am a developer. I did help them get their RSS support going. And they have called on me for free advice, thought that was a long time ago. And I do help get them flow. All of this obviously is part of the grieving process. If I decide to go without I will surely miss the Times. Much more than I miss Facebook, which I quit back in September. I don't miss Facebook one bit. I'm sure if I knew what my friends were doing there I would miss it. But I don't. One of those times that ignorance is bliss.