# NY Times Pay Fence and Kickstarter By [Continuations](https://continuations.com) · 2011-03-18 kickstarter, new york times, pay wall, pay fence --- Yesterday, the [New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/) [announced its long awaited pay fence](http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=105317&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1540299&highlight=).  Today, we [announced our investment](http://www.usv.com/2011/03/kickstarter.php) in [Kickstarter](http://kickstarter.com).  These two represent different models for sustaining efforts that are socially important but are having their previous financial models disrupted by the Internet: journalism in the case of the NY Times and creative projects on Kickstarter.  While I am a fan of what the NY Times stands for and would like to see quality journalism exist going forward, I am not convinced that the pay fence is quite the right approach.  Adopting the [Financial Times](http://www.ft.com/) model of trying to get only the most frequent users to pay is definitely a step up from an all around and un-differentiated paywall.  It recognizes the fact that different readers derive varying degrees of benefit from reading the NY Times.  But it still does so in a rather crude fashion that feels, well – like a fence.  Something to keep you out rather than draw you in.  Btw, there is a terrific [in-depth piece](http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/03/the-newsonomics-of-the-new-york-times-pay-fence/) over at Nieman that everyone should read. Kickstarter, on the other hand, is all about drawing you in.  It has a much more sophisticated model of allowing people to pick from many different levels in supporting a project. The benefits that are provided at each level provide for a much larger range of expression of personal benefit from a project.  It is important to note that the benefit is generally of an emotional nature – what one receives in return is not hard, transactional value but rather things that convey meaning. Could a Kickstarter-like model work for the NY Times? We won’t really know until someone tries.  The model would need some tweaks, but by and large I believe it could succeed.  Instead of looking to fund the paper as a whole there might be projects around different individuals (e.g., columnists like [Nick Kristof](http://twitter.com/nickkristof)) or areas of inquiry (e.g. Afghanistan).  People could then support these at varying levels with benefits including such things as access to a group chat or even a sponsor by-line when the resulting pieces run.  I am still hoping that someone in journalism will experiment with a more innovative approach like that – and maybe it can still be the NY Times! ![Enhanced by Zemanta](http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=834a2483-9c44-4ed8-895f-06dd71437ef8) --- *Originally published on [Continuations](https://continuations.com/ny-times-pay-fence-and-kickstarter)*