Conclusion: the NYT is about to die. I can't read it any other way, there simply are too many competitors in the general space that a newspaper operates in that people will continue to subscribe in large enough numbers.

It's a simple problem really: In the past - before network news came along - the newspapers had a near monopoly on news coverage. With the coming of the networks that changed, the newspapers focused more on giving the background and the in depth version of the networks based 'sound bytes' and flashy presentation.

Then the web came along, a disruptive technology if there ever was one. So, now both the networks and the newspapers are manning the pumps. A nice example is the plane recently downed in the Hudson, within minutes there were photographs on Flickr and facebook, from the eye witnesses themselves.

Newspapers would be a day old at a minimum when they landed in your mailbox, but it was news to you. Now they feel like something that you might as well put under the cats litter box right away, you've already had plenty of opportunity to read everything in there except for the background & opinion pieces online 10 times over by the time you get the paper version.

And it's not like there is a shortage of background and opinion pieces on the web either. Maybe not from salaried journalists, but interesting and often informative just the same.

To quote Nicholas Negroponte: If your business is shipping atoms carrying information you have a problem.