Considering how important this is to the future of the NYT 10 million would have been completely reasonable. Don't forget sometimes a 1% better solution can really be worth 100 million.
It's only reasonable if that $10M actually buys you something more valuable than what you get for $2M, even by 1% as you state. I think many of us are questioning whether that could possibly be the case.
I'm genuinely interested in hearing some ideas of what $8M of extra investment could buy in this case?
I'm not denying that regardless there will be a hefty price point on accomplishing something like this in a major organization such as NYT - but there are still limits on how much seems fiscally responsible. Even at $10 million being a possible reasonable number, it's still a fraction of the $40 million spent.
