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Was gonna complain that ft was behind a paywall. Ty.
by browsercoin2019 8y ago
Was gonna complain that ft was behind a paywall. Ty.
- Cypher 8y agoyou should still complain, this nonsense has to end.
- hyperbovine 8y agoI’ll bet you say the same thing when you are forced to pay for groceries before eating them.
- james_s_tayler 8y agoKarl Marx said the same thing about collecting firewood in the forest.
- genera1 8y agoBecause, as with groceries, you're depriving someone else of content by consuming it. You wouldn't download a car. It's the most disingenuous argument against free media (or piracy etc) that's being thrown around.
- hyperbovine 8y ago> It's the most disingenuous argument No, it's not. I actually used to write for a newspaper before. These days, they are shoestring operations locked in a constant battle for financial survival. The stories are written by real people who get paid (very little) real money. Take that out of the equation and the news goes away. I deeply value journalism and want it to survive. The level of entitlement evinced by you, gp, and many others on this site as regards the whole "information wants to be free" meme is simply stunning. Like, you really haven't given a moment's thought to what "free" implies here.
- genera1 8y agoWhile I do agree with some concerns about quality journalism, and I want it to survive, I find the specific argument you used to be disingenuous. We're dealing with perfectly and infinitely reproducible 'product'. Any scarcity here is artificially imposed. It's not like with groceries, where we have finite amount of goods, that can only be consumed once. I know, that reality of dealing with non-scarce goods doesn't gel very well with free-market capitalism, but I think limiting access to journalism (and IP laws such as copyrights and patents) is a net negative for our society, so we shouldn't resort to bending our only post-scarcity type of good into a scarcity driven economic system.
- hyperbovine 8y agoSplendid. Impressive. Who pays? It’s a very simple question I’m asking you.
- genera1 8y agoGet rid of market capitalism and nobody has to
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kaolti 8y agoI'm sure you're joking. Information is not a consumable, it doesn't get used up in the process.
- hyperbovine 8y agoAnd yet it still costs money to produce...
- tozeur 8y agoNonsense? Why do you say that? Is it nonsense that a publication needs to pay its employees? Is it nonsense that non-ad driven revenue allows a publication to focus on quality material versus optimizing for clicks?
- Dangeranger 8y agoMost publications including the New York Times allow for a limited number of free article views before a paywall is imposed. That approach allows for casual viewers to get a feel for the content, without open access to all the material.
- bufferoverflow 8y agoYou would be right if the article had some unique exclusive information. It doesn't. Maybe HN should ban paywalled sources.