Mugged by Insolvency

The decade before this one was rife with stories of how uncool it is to expect money for online-accessible content. In 2000, Lars Ulrich of the band Metallica was condemned as a greedy, out-of-touch “cyber narc” for daring to take on the file-sharing service Napster in court. Five years later, the New York Times (NYT) was widely mocked for its first attempt at a paywall, TimesSelect, which charged users for the right to read its Op-Ed columnists and tap into its archives online. After an ignominious two years, the program was scrapped.