It’s good to see that The New York Times has abandoned the irritating TimesSelect model, which required the web audience to pay a subscription to read columns from op-ed contributors such as Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman (check out Krugman’s interesting new blog here). Now the paper has moved to an ad-supported approach, not only are the columns now available for free but so are the paper’s archives stretching back to 1987–a considerable resource.And after Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.’s purchase of The Wall Street Journal, the issue now being debated by the paper’s executives is “Should the Journal fall in line with the rest of the industry and make its 11-year-old paid-subscription Web site free?”The traditional argument for paying for online journalism was that although casual browsers might be reluctant to shell out for news available from an array of resources, business customers would be willing to pay for potentially valuable “market intelligence.”If the WSJ goes for an ad-based revenue model, it seems like the last support for paid online subscriptions is kicked away. Against such a background, you have to wonder why The Irish Times, which offers considerably more fluff than market intelligence, continues hides the bulk of its online content behind its “Premium Content Subscription” wall. If The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal can’t make this approach work, why does editor Geraldine Kennedy and the Irish Times board think they can?