> The fundamental problem of journalism is that the economics no longer works out.

Yes it does, from nytimes actual earning release for Q 2025:

1. The Company added approximately 450,000 net digital-only subscribers compared with the end of the third quarter of 2025, bringing the total number of subscribers to 12.78 million.

2. Total digital-only average revenue per user (“ARPU”) increased 0.7 percent year-over-year to $9.72

2025 subscription revenue was 1.950 billion dollars. Advertising was 565 million that includes 155 million dollars worth of print advertising.

Sure operating profit is only 550 million very close to the advertising revenue, but the bulk of their income is subscriptions, they could make it work if they had to. My suspicion is that if they dropped all the google ads they could have better subscription retention and conversion rates as well.