After much talk and speculation today is the day when the New York Times paywall finally goes live – well, that is unless you live in Canada where you were lucky enough to see it implemented last week.  The trend towards paywalls is a one that has been a bit of hot topic in the industry for most of last year and now, with the NYT taking the plunge, it is worth exploring some of the comments out there on the issue.

Maybe the first voice to consider is that Martin Nisenholtz, NYT Digital Czar, speaking with Peter Kafka of MediaMemo.  Nisenholtz implies he isn’t expecting the majority of readers to become paying readers, just the plan is to convert a minority of heavy users into subscribers, with the intention of remaining a “very very large player” on the Web.  With ad revenues on the increase, in the UK at least, then perhaps the NYT are attempting to find a “third way” between paywall and free access?

Two other articles that really caught our eyes are these from Fast Company and Harvard Business Review, both looking a bit deeper at paywalls and the potential thought processes behind them for consumers.  With Web, iPad, and Web plus iPad options now available, not to mention the 20 free articles each month, who knew paywalls could be so cognitively taxing?!

Finally, paidContent have put together this handy comparison chart of how the biggest US newspaper paywalls match up:

What are your views on paywalls?  Will you, or do you, subscribe to any? Let us know below.