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Paid subscription content is the eternal September of HN conversations, and I’m really sorry to even hint at it again, but on that page I essentially see two th

Paid subscription content is the eternal September of HN conversations, and I’m really sorry to even hint at it again, but on that page I essentially see two things: - regular ad (ok, I see your point here) - ads for their own subscription product I don’t understand how advertising their own product, on their own site, using limited free samples, is… wrong? Or against the spirit of a decentralised internet? I wasn’t around during the BB era, maybe that’s my lack of experience speaking. Is that not part of the internet we want? I wouldn’t mind people advertising a paid product on their own site with free samples to try it out. What else do we expect? Everything gratis always ? Honestly I’m pretty hard-core agpl freedom Stallman emacs noshower mode, but even I have to admit: this seems fair.

roymckenzie 8y ago
I think it's pretty clear that, in addition to the very hard sell, it's a design nightmare.
ironSkillet 8y ago
Exactly. One can argue about design but these websites are businesses...they need revenue to perform their functions. If not ads/subscriptions, then what? The use cases of the internet have changed so dramatically over the past 20 years, how can we reasonably expect the same economic model that worked then to apply now?
- icantdrive55 8y ago
  I think they should look into a 501c3 economic model. Yes--they will be begging, but Wikipedia seems to do pretty well; contrary to what they claim. The days of being a very well paid Writer/Reporter/Journalist seems over for now. Take advantage of the people whom are willing to work for free? Just because someone isn't compensated doesn't necessarily mean they are less credible. And no--I don't like not paying people for their work, but until you have a publication people want/need to buy--experiment? (They might have experimented? I don't know?) My only exposure to the Economist is through HN. The articles I have read seem throw together by interns. Interns whom probally got the position because they look good on paper, or have connections? Coursera offered a course on advaved something years ago. I forget the college, or professor. He just assumed the best students would be the ones physically present. I believe his best student was 400th of the Internent students? My point is take advantage of the people outside the network/club. Kinda, like the stunning success Hacker News has achieved. (And in the end, I have no solutions. I do feel we need to put egos aside, and realize we will never go back to the Good ole days. Days that white privileged kids dominated, even in the Liberal Art fields. On TV, I see Woodward's, or Bernstein's daughter chiming in on politics. My first thought is why? Did she get hired because of genes, or us she some political genius? We all know the reason. My second thought is the right use of the Internet we could abolish all nepotism, and the best person could be a few clicks away? I don't know how to find the talent though? Or, I don't know an easy way to find the talent that would make me read The Economist?)
jakoblorz 8y ago
Opinionated: Using the Economist as the example is especially bad because their articles do provide significant value in contrast to most other paywalle'd blogs!
ZeljkoS 8y ago
The things you see as a problem are not the things that annoyed me: A) The Economist says that article limit is 5 per month. But they waive that limit for Google Crawler. So they mislead search engine into thinking that article is accessible, when actually it is not. They intentionally misrepresent as a free service to attract free SEO traffic. B) The person who shared link to that article was not aware people like me will not able to read it. They were also mislead into thinking is an accessible resource, to get free shares. C) Even if you don't have a problem with A and B, their UX is ridiculous. One message to subscribe is covering another message to subscribe. As the same time there is a newsletter popup which promises you a PDF. I hope that now you better understands what annoys people. It's is not that business are trying to make money; it is how they approach it.
- true_religion 8y ago
  Google Crawler is not a human being, cannot agree to terms, and does not make use of the article. There is no exchange going on there--wherein if Google Crawler reads 6 articles, it's gained something at the expense of the Economist.
smsm42 8y ago
It's not that advertising is wrong. It's that it is so massively overdone that it makes common web experience unbearable. I now avoid browsing most major sites with my mobile devices that don't have full adblocks - because it'd either completely unusable or even worse, get the whole device stuck and eat half of my battery on the way. I know it's their business model and they don't know any better. It doesn't make it any better for me. When you have one tasteful ad, it's fine. When you have five, that's too much. When you go to a site and see 50+ foreign domains with ad/tracking/marketing loading, that's cancer. That's not the internet I'd want.
- skinnymuch 8y ago
  Is this because you have a very old device or just not a good device? I don’t have any ad blocking. I go to sites on an almost 4 year old device and almost 1 year old device. Haven’t had issues with either at all. Not even a slight slowdown.
  - smsm42 8y ago
    It's an ok device, just not for displaying 10 animated ads per page.

roymckenzie 8y ago

I think it's pretty clear that, in addition to the very hard sell, it's a design nightmare.

ironSkillet 8y ago

Exactly. One can argue about design but these websites are businesses...they need revenue to perform their functions. If not ads/subscriptions, then what? The use cases of the internet have changed so dramatically over the past 20 years, how can we reasonably expect the same economic model that worked then to apply now?

icantdrive55 8y ago
I think they should look into a 501c3 economic model. Yes--they will be begging, but Wikipedia seems to do pretty well; contrary to what they claim. The days of being a very well paid Writer/Reporter/Journalist seems over for now. Take advantage of the people whom are willing to work for free? Just because someone isn't compensated doesn't necessarily mean they are less credible. And no--I don't like not paying people for their work, but until you have a publication people want/need to buy--experiment? (They might have experimented? I don't know?) My only exposure to the Economist is through HN. The articles I have read seem throw together by interns. Interns whom probally got the position because they look good on paper, or have connections? Coursera offered a course on advaved something years ago. I forget the college, or professor. He just assumed the best students would be the ones physically present. I believe his best student was 400th of the Internent students? My point is take advantage of the people outside the network/club. Kinda, like the stunning success Hacker News has achieved. (And in the end, I have no solutions. I do feel we need to put egos aside, and realize we will never go back to the Good ole days. Days that white privileged kids dominated, even in the Liberal Art fields. On TV, I see Woodward's, or Bernstein's daughter chiming in on politics. My first thought is why? Did she get hired because of genes, or us she some political genius? We all know the reason. My second thought is the right use of the Internet we could abolish all nepotism, and the best person could be a few clicks away? I don't know how to find the talent though? Or, I don't know an easy way to find the talent that would make me read The Economist?)

jakoblorz 8y ago

Opinionated: Using the Economist as the example is especially bad because their articles do provide significant value in contrast to most other paywalle'd blogs!

ZeljkoS 8y ago

The things you see as a problem are not the things that annoyed me: A) The Economist says that article limit is 5 per month. But they waive that limit for Google Crawler. So they mislead search engine into thinking that article is accessible, when actually it is not. They intentionally misrepresent as a free service to attract free SEO traffic. B) The person who shared link to that article was not aware people like me will not able to read it. They were also mislead into thinking is an accessible resource, to get free shares. C) Even if you don't have a problem with A and B, their UX is ridiculous. One message to subscribe is covering another message to subscribe. As the same time there is a newsletter popup which promises you a PDF. I hope that now you better understands what annoys people. It's is not that business are trying to make money; it is how they approach it.

true_religion 8y ago
Google Crawler is not a human being, cannot agree to terms, and does not make use of the article. There is no exchange going on there--wherein if Google Crawler reads 6 articles, it's gained something at the expense of the Economist.

smsm42 8y ago

It's not that advertising is wrong. It's that it is so massively overdone that it makes common web experience unbearable. I now avoid browsing most major sites with my mobile devices that don't have full adblocks - because it'd either completely unusable or even worse, get the whole device stuck and eat half of my battery on the way. I know it's their business model and they don't know any better. It doesn't make it any better for me. When you have one tasteful ad, it's fine. When you have five, that's too much. When you go to a site and see 50+ foreign domains with ad/tracking/marketing loading, that's cancer. That's not the internet I'd want.

skinnymuch 8y ago
Is this because you have a very old device or just not a good device? I don’t have any ad blocking. I go to sites on an almost 4 year old device and almost 1 year old device. Haven’t had issues with either at all. Not even a slight slowdown.
- smsm42 8y ago
  It's an ok device, just not for displaying 10 animated ads per page.