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They were probably thinking about the diminishing ROI an increasingly strict and non-circumventable method would bring.

That they need google to deliver the eyeballs.

The NYT is executing a decade-long return to payment-based reporting. The early parts include easy-to-circumvent paywalls so that they can have some price discrimination [1] while also setting the social norms that payment is expected for web content. The later stages will likely include more rigid restrictions on content -- but that will only fly once "pay to read" is something people expect from expert content on the web, rather than are surprised by.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination