by: Mathew Ingram | GigaOM.com

Both the Financial Times and the New York Times have either already crossed or are close to crossing an important threshold: namely, the point at which revenue from reader subscriptions exceeds the revenue they get from advertising. For an industry that has been as dependent on ad revenue as the newspaper business, that is a significant milestone — but it also raises a host of questions about the impact that shift could have on both the business of newspapers and the journalism they produce.