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Ask HN: Why are pay-walled articles allowed on Hacker News

82 points by smithmayowa 7y ago

You see an interesting article headline with a lot of upvotes on the front page, and you proceed to click on it only to be greeted with a pay wall on getting to the web address, why are these sort of articles allowed to get to the front page in the first place?

sarcasmatwork 7y ago
Most of the time you can bypass by going into incognito mode / privacy mode in FF. Chrome is making it easier to bypass paywalls too: https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/google-chrome-update-incognito-mode-paywall-workaround.html https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/google-chrome-update-in...
karma20 7y ago
HN's policy on paywalls is outlined in the FAQ [1]. Private Browsing mode is generally a good workaround: > It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. > In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic. The rationale explained by dang in a 2015 post [2] makes sense: > Publications like NYT, WSJ, the Economist, and the New Yorker have paywalls that leave ways for readers to work around them. Such stories are OK to post to Hacker News. Yes, this sucks, but the loss of many substantive articles would suck worse. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13434938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13434938
- arcboii92 7y ago
  Aside from: clearing cookies, having to reopen news articles you've already half read in incognito, or adding an additional '.' (like "nytimes.com./blah"); what are some of the other ways people are getting around paywalls?
  - n4r9 7y ago
    Adding "outline.com/" before the url sometimes works.
    - lowdose 7y ago
      At least wsj.com does not work anymore on outline. Maybe HN can bundle all those paywalled sites and sell a subscription.
      - sturgill 7y ago
        Use a WSJ link from Bitly into Outline and it works again...
  - enlyth 7y ago
    https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox There's a Chrome equivalent as well
  - allthing 7y ago
    I have this trick where I just pay for high quality, well researched news because I'm an adult and I realize that not everything should be free and maybe we should pay for some things. People on HN like to complain about paying in data to use Google and Facebook and yet also consider it an affront that they have to pay money to journalists.
    - cryptozeus 7y ago
      Yup this
    - krageon 7y ago
      Which one do you pay for? All of them? How do you determine high quality? How do you reconcile the fact that you need to pay before you can read it, thus not being able to evaluate the quality properly? How do you reconcile saying a large news publication produces quality with the amount of errors that are frequently and egregiously present in articles with any sort of depth?
      - tofflos 7y ago
        I agree with the opening question but I find latter part of the argument unreasonable. You will encounter many, many services in life that require an initial payment. Pay once and then decide whether you want to keep on paying for more. This applies to restaurants, movies, hotels, taxis, etc. The initial payment for pay-walled articles is usually quite small. If you don't know where to start you can always ask a friend, read a review, or join an online community.
        krageon 7y ago
        I opened and closed with the questions what were to me most relevant, which is my mistake as I should have front-loaded both. Your answer is reasonable, except it glosses over the fact that the quality is bad and this is a pervasive issue.
    - Xelbair 7y ago
      True, i would agree. If only paying for high quality news and articles guaranteed me that i won't see ads, well at least non-js ads. Sadly that won't happen because people who can pay for such news have higher disposable income and are better target for advertisers.
  - AdamJacobMuller 7y ago
    archive.is is fairly foolproof for me
  - deftnerd 7y ago
    Personally, I do just clear cookies, but I've found a good Firefox extension that does it well for me. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-cookies-button-ver1x/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-cookie... It has a convenient button that clears all the storage for the page in the current window. It remove the cookies, local storage and session storage. Then I just reload the pay-walled page and it thinks I'm a new visitor.
tehlike 7y ago
Outline or archive.is are other ways to read these articles.
kjaftaedi 7y ago
Because the audience here understands how to work around paywalls. There's even a "web" link at the top of every article to help you, as having google as a referrer is one of many workarounds. Others include, incognito windows, multiple browsers or clearing your cookies, google cache, outline.com, archive.is, etc. If there's an article that's been posted here, and it's being upvoted, you can be sure that people are reading it. If you've tried everything you can think of, but still can't get to the content, just ask. Someone will likely assist you.
jdsully 7y ago
The pay articles are often more timely and higher quality than the free news outlets. It seems only natural they’d get linked to from an aggregator geared to high quality discussion.
johnsimer 7y ago
one technique I rarely see mentioned is disabling javascript. Will get you around NYT paywall and others But what I find ironic is HN as a whole seems to complain about both paywalls and ads. . . You have to pick one or the other Perhaps it's two separate groups of people complaining though
- mattmurdog 7y ago
  This is what I do. But there are a few where they don't use a cover and require you to actually subscribe before loading the real page.
jdmcnugent 7y ago
If I hit a paywall on safari iOS I simply click "send to" button and open it in the Duck Duck Go app.
quickthrower2 7y ago
I think HN takes a pragmatic approach. There is quality news on those paywalled sites. They are paywalled because they need to pay professionals to write quality researched content (it isn’t some internet marketer trying to make a quick buck) so ethically it seems OK and there are workarounds. I think there would be a natural balance in that a paywalled article needs to be even better than average to do well as fewer people can read it to upvote it. So hopefully when a paywalled article appears it’s better than average. Medium.com is my only concern because they paywall run of the mill blog quality articles. I’d encourage people to post using a friends link in that case if they can get it.
jpindar 7y ago
Why shouldn't they be? Do you have difficulty reading them, or do you some sort of philosophical objection?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
m-p-3 7y ago
I don't want to completely deny them because some a genuinely interesting, but if there was a way to tag them accordingly (a paywall symbol, etc), I wouldn't be as annoyed when I go face-first into the wall without any warnings.
- pedalpete 7y ago
  That's a good idea, and it gives the user the suggestion to perhaps open in incognito/private browser mode to view.
smittywerben 7y ago
You're supposed to post the original source. Have you tried using a filter?
zaro 7y ago
Because HN is not place for poor people! Just joking[0], it's mostly because a lot of these pay walled sites have a workaround for reading the article anyway. [0] I am pretty sure I'll be downvoted for it, because it actually is mostly true.
- not_a_cop75 7y ago
  Well it's not a lie. Most paywalls you can access via anonymous access or disguised as a search engine or spider. Don't ask me about the legalities of such behavior, however. I'm waiting for some content license authority to start charging 10k per instance of paywall evasion.
cryptozeus 7y ago
Because many people have paid subscription and sometimes its even covered by employers account.
commoner 7y ago
Many of these paywalled news sites can be accessed with the Bypass Paywalls browser extension: Firefox (desktop & Android): https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox Chrome (desktop): https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome It's free and open source.
pndy 7y ago
Slightly off-topic: I'm having a feeling that in last months HN is getting flooded with links coming from big general news, newspapers portals like there's some kind of content "promotion" going on. Or maybe it's just me?
- protonimitate 7y ago
  nytimes articles have been exceptionally prevalent lately. I'm not anti-nytimes, but a lot of them are very far off topic for "hacker news".
soalindia 7y ago
mmm
buboard 7y ago
At which point will people start considering paywalls ads (which is what they are)? Siloed content should not enjoy the momentum of "previously unsiloed", and it's no different from content that has forever been siloed. They are functionally not much different from content marketing blogs.

82 points by smithmayowa 7y ago

sarcasmatwork 7y ago

Most of the time you can bypass by going into incognito mode / privacy mode in FF. Chrome is making it easier to bypass paywalls too: https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/google-chrome-update-incognito-mode-paywall-workaround.html https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/google-chrome-update-in...

karma20 7y ago

HN's policy on paywalls is outlined in the FAQ [1]. Private Browsing mode is generally a good workaround: > It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. > In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic. The rationale explained by dang in a 2015 post [2] makes sense: > Publications like NYT, WSJ, the Economist, and the New Yorker have paywalls that leave ways for readers to work around them. Such stories are OK to post to Hacker News. Yes, this sucks, but the loss of many substantive articles would suck worse. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13434938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13434938

arcboii92 7y ago
Aside from: clearing cookies, having to reopen news articles you've already half read in incognito, or adding an additional '.' (like "nytimes.com./blah"); what are some of the other ways people are getting around paywalls?
- n4r9 7y ago
  Adding "outline.com/" before the url sometimes works.
  - lowdose 7y ago
    At least wsj.com does not work anymore on outline. Maybe HN can bundle all those paywalled sites and sell a subscription.
    - sturgill 7y ago
      Use a WSJ link from Bitly into Outline and it works again...
- enlyth 7y ago
  https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox There's a Chrome equivalent as well
- allthing 7y ago
  I have this trick where I just pay for high quality, well researched news because I'm an adult and I realize that not everything should be free and maybe we should pay for some things. People on HN like to complain about paying in data to use Google and Facebook and yet also consider it an affront that they have to pay money to journalists.
  - cryptozeus 7y ago
    Yup this
  - krageon 7y ago
    Which one do you pay for? All of them? How do you determine high quality? How do you reconcile the fact that you need to pay before you can read it, thus not being able to evaluate the quality properly? How do you reconcile saying a large news publication produces quality with the amount of errors that are frequently and egregiously present in articles with any sort of depth?
    - tofflos 7y ago
      I agree with the opening question but I find latter part of the argument unreasonable. You will encounter many, many services in life that require an initial payment. Pay once and then decide whether you want to keep on paying for more. This applies to restaurants, movies, hotels, taxis, etc. The initial payment for pay-walled articles is usually quite small. If you don't know where to start you can always ask a friend, read a review, or join an online community.
      - krageon 7y ago
        I opened and closed with the questions what were to me most relevant, which is my mistake as I should have front-loaded both. Your answer is reasonable, except it glosses over the fact that the quality is bad and this is a pervasive issue.
  - Xelbair 7y ago
    True, i would agree. If only paying for high quality news and articles guaranteed me that i won't see ads, well at least non-js ads. Sadly that won't happen because people who can pay for such news have higher disposable income and are better target for advertisers.
- AdamJacobMuller 7y ago
  archive.is is fairly foolproof for me
- deftnerd 7y ago
  Personally, I do just clear cookies, but I've found a good Firefox extension that does it well for me. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-cookies-button-ver1x/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-cookie... It has a convenient button that clears all the storage for the page in the current window. It remove the cookies, local storage and session storage. Then I just reload the pay-walled page and it thinks I'm a new visitor.

tehlike 7y ago

Outline or archive.is are other ways to read these articles.

kjaftaedi 7y ago

Because the audience here understands how to work around paywalls. There's even a "web" link at the top of every article to help you, as having google as a referrer is one of many workarounds. Others include, incognito windows, multiple browsers or clearing your cookies, google cache, outline.com, archive.is, etc. If there's an article that's been posted here, and it's being upvoted, you can be sure that people are reading it. If you've tried everything you can think of, but still can't get to the content, just ask. Someone will likely assist you.

jdsully 7y ago

The pay articles are often more timely and higher quality than the free news outlets. It seems only natural they’d get linked to from an aggregator geared to high quality discussion.

johnsimer 7y ago

one technique I rarely see mentioned is disabling javascript. Will get you around NYT paywall and others But what I find ironic is HN as a whole seems to complain about both paywalls and ads. . . You have to pick one or the other Perhaps it's two separate groups of people complaining though

mattmurdog 7y ago
This is what I do. But there are a few where they don't use a cover and require you to actually subscribe before loading the real page.

jdmcnugent 7y ago

If I hit a paywall on safari iOS I simply click "send to" button and open it in the Duck Duck Go app.

quickthrower2 7y ago

I think HN takes a pragmatic approach. There is quality news on those paywalled sites. They are paywalled because they need to pay professionals to write quality researched content (it isn’t some internet marketer trying to make a quick buck) so ethically it seems OK and there are workarounds. I think there would be a natural balance in that a paywalled article needs to be even better than average to do well as fewer people can read it to upvote it. So hopefully when a paywalled article appears it’s better than average. Medium.com is my only concern because they paywall run of the mill blog quality articles. I’d encourage people to post using a friends link in that case if they can get it.

jpindar 7y ago

Why shouldn't they be? Do you have difficulty reading them, or do you some sort of philosophical objection?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

m-p-3 7y ago

I don't want to completely deny them because some a genuinely interesting, but if there was a way to tag them accordingly (a paywall symbol, etc), I wouldn't be as annoyed when I go face-first into the wall without any warnings.

pedalpete 7y ago
That's a good idea, and it gives the user the suggestion to perhaps open in incognito/private browser mode to view.

smittywerben 7y ago

You're supposed to post the original source. Have you tried using a filter?

zaro 7y ago

Because HN is not place for poor people! Just joking[0], it's mostly because a lot of these pay walled sites have a workaround for reading the article anyway. [0] I am pretty sure I'll be downvoted for it, because it actually is mostly true.

not_a_cop75 7y ago
Well it's not a lie. Most paywalls you can access via anonymous access or disguised as a search engine or spider. Don't ask me about the legalities of such behavior, however. I'm waiting for some content license authority to start charging 10k per instance of paywall evasion.

cryptozeus 7y ago

Because many people have paid subscription and sometimes its even covered by employers account.

commoner 7y ago

Many of these paywalled news sites can be accessed with the Bypass Paywalls browser extension: Firefox (desktop & Android): https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox Chrome (desktop): https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome It's free and open source.

pndy 7y ago

Slightly off-topic: I'm having a feeling that in last months HN is getting flooded with links coming from big general news, newspapers portals like there's some kind of content "promotion" going on. Or maybe it's just me?

protonimitate 7y ago
nytimes articles have been exceptionally prevalent lately. I'm not anti-nytimes, but a lot of them are very far off topic for "hacker news".

soalindia 7y ago

mmm

buboard 7y ago

At which point will people start considering paywalls ads (which is what they are)? Siloed content should not enjoy the momentum of "previously unsiloed", and it's no different from content that has forever been siloed. They are functionally not much different from content marketing blogs.