I've found nytimes.com content to be great and exhibiting great technical, artistic, and journalistic merit[1]. As a result, I visit it daily and and it's the first time in my life I have a paid recurring news subscription.

However, nytimes.com has a very regrettable pricing structure, as you say. They seem to aim to be Comcast-like. The pricing is:

* Heavily promotional (special price 50%+ off sticker price)

* Difficult to cancel (you are asked to call them, although they will ultimately run it through email)

* Opaque in billing (no way to actually look at the terms of your current subscription/promotion; full payment history hidden away to obscure how much you're paying them)

They do this no doubt because it works in the short term and bumps up numbers. But as a consumer I can't help but feel they are losing goodwill and face in this new age and hope they come around to more contemporary online billing practices.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/21/business/media... is the best example I can find. It's very nice to get stuff like this every week. Kudos to the web team.