You can use a subscriber link, but Greg chose not to. Jon Corbet is a mutual friend, and LWN is essentially a two person shop (Jon and Jake do all of the work,

You can use a subscriber link, but Greg chose not to. Jon Corbet is a mutual friend, and LWN is essentially a two person shop (Jon and Jake do all of the work, and they are not getting rich off of what is essentially a labor of love). So if someone decides they want to use a somewhat more proactive way of encouraging people to subscribe to LWN, personally I think it's appropriate and its his choice. Just as someone who wants to post a subscriber link to Hacker News is also appropriate. (But you should seriously think about subscribing, even at the Starving Hacker level, if at all possible. I subscribe at the highest tier even though my company has a corporate subscription, Just Because.)