Paul Ford has written

the only coherent contribution that I have seen supporting the NYTimes.com decision to start charging for content: The Times they is a’chargin’. He correctly notes that the Times should, in order to be successful, do several things to mitigate against the negative public effect of hiding articles behind a pay-wall. For me, absent those modifications the new policy is a negative one for both the web and for the Times – but if they were to take his advice seriously, I would definitely reconsider my feelings about this kind of thing.