Will People Pay to Pass the NYTimes Paywall?

It's been a week since The New York Times announced they'll be charging readers $15 a month for continued online viewing, and it will be another week until the Paywall takes effect. In the meantime, everyone's deciding whether they'll take the plunge and pay, or whether they'll cheap out and whine. They're taking moral stands -- "Content has monetary value!" or "Those Greedy Bastards" or "How will I read the wedding section?!" They're also asking somewhat time-wasting questions about what this means for the future of online publishing, to which I say: shut up, suck it up, leave me alone.

Here's why:

1. The Times is totally worth $15 per month. Think about how much value you'll get compared to the $60 per month or more that you spend on your rarely used gym membership.

2. The paywall will work. Everyone reads the Times. There's no good alternative. (WaPo, no thanks. Boston Globe, are you kidding me? Huffpo? Not a newspaper. And so on.)

3. That said, The Times is an outlier. If other sites try to insert paywalls, they will fail. No one wants to pay for content unless it's absolutely necessary. I wouldn't pay for any other site. But I'd pay for The Times.

4. Therefore, The Times paywall won't effect online publishing in any way. It'll just cost you $15 a month.

So pay it or don't, but please stop talking about it.