Today, the New York Times ended their online TimesSelect subscription service, which offered online access to the Times archives. TimesSelect was available to all subscribers to the physical paper, as well as many university students and any individuals willing to pay $50 a year for the service.

Nowadays, a great deal of the material on the Internet is available for free. Revenues are largely raised through online advertising, itself a business so large that it funds much of Google’s activities. In fact, newspaper websites are perhaps the largest destinations at which users have to pay for information online. (And pornography, which has always been a burgeoning business in virtually every medium.)

As I see it, the reluctance of newspaper websites to rely on advertising is primarily twofold. While newspapers have always relied on print advertising to keep themselves afloat, they view the Internet as an extension of their print business, not necessarily as a new market in and of itself. (To wit: online-only news sources tend not to require subscriptions.) Print sources see their websites as a great opportunity to take advantage of the technology available and provide extensive archives. Since those who browse archives are probably hardcore enough to be willing to pay, why not charge for the service?

The other reason is that newspapers cost a lot to run, and subscriptions generate a better, more stable source of revenue than online advertising, especially for upscale outfits such as the Times which would be averse to “Shoot the Gangsta” type ads. Indeed, the Times was making over $10 million a year through TimesSelect. So why drop it, and so soon after it was introduced in 2005?

A major part of it is the growing importance of search engines. By opening their articles to all users, they are also opening those pages to search engines like Google, which can index them and attract more readers to the Times online. More readers, in turn, attract more ad revenue.

Transitioning from the walled garden to the open model of the Internet is certainly not a new idea, but it’s one that print media has been reluctant to accept. Such a bold move by one of the most respected print news agencies in the world is certainly something worth noticing.