This is wrong in 2026. Lots of people want to pay. See: TFA
What they don't want is and _still_ see ads, get hassled by needy marketing emails. See: TFA
If you're saying "we're gonna show you ads and datamine you because you're getting it free", then when I do pay, you have to take that stuff out. Try to have your cake and eat it too = sub canceled, adblock on, ad nauseam enabled.
It's also true that most people are unwilling to fully "buy out" their ad value. For instance Meta makes about $27/mo/user from instagram ads.
Would you pay $27/mo for instagram? Maybe people would pay $5, but Meta will still close the gap with $22 of ads...
NYTimes is probably spending less than $1-2,000,000/m to run their tech systems including the salaries of the tech people that keep it up and running. They made $2.82B in 2025, an increase of OVER 50% since 2020.
https://www.tickergate.com/stocks/nyt/revenue
Just shy of $2B of that money came from subscriptions alone, advertising was just over $500m of their income.
They're not hurting for money, and they're not bound to their advertisers.
I don't know why they can't offer an ad-free tier just for people who want the news and no bullshit.