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New York Post blasted for blocking access to its website via iPad’s Safari browser

Jim Romenesko by Jim Romenesko Published June 20, 2011 8:31 am Updated June 20, 2011 9:31 am

paidContent.org| Scripting News
Dave Winer was one of the first to notice and tweet that the Post is now forcing iPad users to download its subscription app to read the paper ($6.99/month; $79.99/year) on the tablet; a Safari browser version is no longer available. (You can still read the paper in the iPad using the Opera Mini or Skyfire browsers.)

Okay this is bad. This is breaking the web. If no one used the iPad it wouldn’t matter. But lots of people use it.

I wonder how Apple feels about this? I can’t imagine they like it. I can see the ads now. “Get an Android tablet to read the web.” …

Stop the madness now! Please.

The move has brought in 125 comments on AppleInsider.com, 199 on on Slashdot, and over 450 reactions on Engadget (“I expect this blocking on Android very soon JUST so they can lose even more viewers. Anyone who would pay for a tablet subscription is just bleh when you can get it on a desktop or you know, another source”). Poynter colleague Jeff Sonderman points out that as of this morning, the Post has the top paid news iPad app in the App Store — almost certainly as a result of this move.

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  • Anonymous

    While I am not sure whether the Post’s strategy makes sense, it no more “breaks the web” than a ticket-taker at a movie theater “breaks the mall.” Winer’s outrage is foolish. Some newspapers pursue a strategy of free content – and few of them are thriving. Others want to sell content – which _by definition_ requires restricting access in some way (just as theatres restrict access to movies in order to sell tickets). We can certainly argue about tactics – is the Post worth paying for, is this the best way to sell it, could that generate more money than online advertising. (I don’t have of these answers.) But the idea that the Post has no right to restrict the availability of its content – or that doing so “breaks the web” – has no basis in reality.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dan-Berman/100000669729095 Dan Berman

    I am not a fan of the Post normally. But how can someone sue because a business that wants to sell its product? If they can do it, this may be the path to web profitability for newspapers.(And I am a journalist who is looking for work because people think stories are free.) This whole idea that all information must be free is ludicrous. If Winer is so dependent on the Post, he should shell out the bucks to read it. 

  • http://twitter.com/BrotherMatthias Jonathan Matthias

    You think news is expensive? Try getting no news, ever.

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