You can subscribe with your library card and get access to all NYTimes (games/crosswords too).

One caveat is the subscription "rental" is for only a 3 day period, so you have "renew" your subscription every 3 days. This only takes 2 clicks though. For San Francisco public library: https://ezproxy.sfpl.org/login/nyt.

Assuming you have a public library that offers these things, of course. Much like people talking about how great Libby is; you can get it through my library, but the selection is extremely limited. And very few libraries offer a good set of options, even for a substantial fee, to non-locals.

I can’t promise I would pay $300/yr to access a great public library, but I would like the option to try it.

My in-laws have a decent (not great, but decent) one in their city, and for sure they will never use it, but they aren’t going to drag the documentation up there and get cards just for me.

if (and a BIG if) you are california, you can get a library card to any in state library, regardless of where in the state you live. Between San Francisco, LA, and San Diego, I think I have pretty much the full suite of anything I can borrow from the eLibrary system.

Yes, NY has similar policies.

Many of us do not have that option.

Aren't the games free? I hear that people pay for the games, but I've done Wordle daily since before NYT bought it, Connections whenever I've watched enough Hank Green videos to forget how much I hate it, and Tiles when I remember it exists, and I've never needed to pay for any of them.

Only the free ones are free. Crossword, even mini crossword now I think, are paid. And some features like playing archived days are also only available with a paid subscription

It’s now one day only, at least through my library.

It's 3 days through mine.

What's your library's page?

I have a few library cards so I'm curious as to which ones have better or worse terms.

https://sccld.org/nyt-online/

It used to be 3 days until some time last year.

I just bookmarked the apply-code page.

Changes every 6-12 months, but that's easy to update.