Is the NYT Fingerprinting iOS devices to enforce their paywall?

Once you read 5 articles/month the NYT begins to paywall its content. Once blocked, a common workaround used to be opening your browser in incognito/private mode. As cookies aren't carried over, the site believe it's your first article & you can proceed.

That no longer works on Safari on iOS. Once you are blocked in "Non-Private" mode, you are also blocked in Private mode.

I tried on two phones to the same effect. (Note: the behavior on OS X Safari is different. You can proceed as expected.)

I'm not really concerned about reading the content. Long story short, I actually have a subscription, just get lazy about signing in.

My curiosity is connecting a session in Private & Non-Private browser tabs.

I'm aware of browser fingerprinting. I'd be surprised if the NYT was using it this way, but maybe I'm wrong?