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Comment by rickyyean | Hacker News Reader

If NYT specializes in the production of content, others would have to value their content over others. I think that's part of the problem. The kind of content the NYT produces is not that valuable. Investigative journalism, which is the hardest and most expensive part of what they do, is valued only by a very small number of people.

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I think this comment vastly underestimates the value of something, placing it only within a marketplace context. Investigative journalism, by actual journalists and not bloggers, is a cornerstone of what we need in a society. Otherwise institutions simply continue unchecked.

The API is the same as anything. NYT specializes in content, Google Translate specializes in machine translation of text. You pay for what you need.

We should be able to come up with some pretty cool uses for nyt api considering the insane amt of content it provides access to. the OP is just one.

This is sort of the crux of the problem though. Top ten kitten lists of the kind Buzzfeed specializes in, are a much better deal in terms of eyeballs/dollar although they have a much lower social utility than say, a well reported piece about the war in Syria or the spread of Ebola.

The NYT and the Guardian are trying a bunch of different approaches to improve their income. Honestly, a world where even a world class newspaper like the NYT struggles to be profitable is a scary place.

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