Is The New York Times a games company? A familiar debate continues

"This chart shows a news company that built an attention ecosystem where Wordle gets you in the door, Cooking keeps you at breakfast, The Athletic owns your commute, and by the time you think about canceling, you'd lose four products instead of one."

"The newspaper business was always a bundle! In 1960 and 1980 and even 2000, most Americans bought a newspaper for the sports page, the movie times, crosswords, maybe a weather report. That stuff underwrote news reporting."

"The NYT literally stopped offering a News-only subscription for new customers - the News product is the tentpole feature of all the bundles."

The New York Times has transitioned its business model from primarily news-focused subscriptions to bundled packages that include games, recipes, sports coverage, and other content alongside journalism. This shift prompted debate among media observers about whether the Times remains fundamentally a news company. Some argue this represents a departure from traditional news business models, while others contend newspapers historically bundled diverse content like sports, crosswords, and entertainment to support news operations. The Times discontinued news-only subscriptions for new customers, positioning news as a core feature within broader product bundles designed to increase subscriber retention and lifetime value.

Read at Nieman Lab