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.