Au contraire. This is just with the reg-wall getting in your face on arrival for the first month of transition.
The paywall only went up in the past week or two.
And yes, they're still counting all the referer traffic that arrives, gets dumped into the paywall and then leaves, as "traffic". That won't last long.
Depends - they probably give free online access with paper deliveries. The question is how many unpaid signups converted into paid? If that number is lower than the decrease in advertising revenue due to lower traffic, then it turned out poorly.