Industry, marketers alike to watch Times experiment closely

Will people pay?
That is the question that New York Times executives and  newyorktimes.com advertisers both have as the Times implements its new pay wall plan for its website.
The newspaper industry has long been trying to maximize its digital revenue. Most news organization websites have been free to readers since their inception. There have been some smaller organizations that have implemented pay walls - but none nearly the size of the New York Times.
The issue for advertisers and marketers is what effect will this have on digital advertising? Will pay sites, such as the Times, be able to keep enough of their traffic to keep the revenue they are receiving from advertisers. Any significant drop in page views will reduce inventory and, in turn, reduce revenue.
Obviously, the idea is to keep traffic up to keep ad revenue up - and then ad subscription revenue to the pot.
Theoretically, this will increase the total amount of revenue that sites are generating.
That, however, will only be the case if traffic remains steady. This will happen only if readers are ready to pay for content.
The New York Times, along with a few other organizations, are betting that they are.
We all anxiously await the results.