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You have to take into account the enormous amount of money the NYT is spending to advertise their paid online service. I've seen countless ads on television and other types of media. Anyone can build a subscriber base with that kind of ad blitz.

The question is, how long will these subscriptions take to pay for themselves, and will paid users stick around that long?

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> Anyone can build a subscriber base with that kind of ad blitz.

Advertising isn't that simple; if it were, it'd be a lot different.

Isn't that simple, as simple as what? Part of what you pay for in a large ad campaign is for people to attend to all of the complexities.

Spending tens of millions of dollars airing the high-quality commercials that the NYT had commissioned? I doubt what they did was simple, but it was damn sure expensive.

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