3 ms·

This is getting tiresome. HN needs a policy to disallow completely paywalled links. That's akin posting a photo of a printed magazine cover and suggesting to

by eps 7y ago

This is getting tiresome. HN needs a policy to disallow completely paywalled links. That's akin posting a photo of a printed magazine cover and suggesting to discuss a terribly interesting article on page 17. It works only for a limited audience that comprises magazine subscribers and those willing to make a trip to the library, borrow from a friend, etc. That's counterproductive and exclusionary. It also doesn't age well.

jwr 7y ago
Yes, HN should take a stand here: all links should point to the open web. I realize that there is lots of interesting content that is not on the web, and that's fine. It's just that HN links should not point to it. We are losing the concept of the open web, and I thought HN would be the community that would understand the problem.
- rootlocus 7y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21779375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21779375
  - grenoire 7y ago
    Sure, that's great it's written down. Doesn't mean we have to agree to the rules. The complaints about paywalled articles are warranted, and we should take a stance about it whether the debate itself is viewed as off-topic or not. It's turned into a form of protest, at this point.
simias 7y ago
I can just select "free" and click through to get the article. Admittedly they say that you can only access "a limited number of articles every month" but I think that's a reasonable compromise because: - if like me you only stumble on the website through news aggregators like this one you probably won't have any issues to get to the article without paying, - if on the other hand you read enough articles to hit the hard paywall then clearly you get something out of this particular website and it's not unreasonable for them to ask for you to pay for it IMO. So I really think it's fine to post these types of articles on HN.
- Semaphor 7y ago
  > if like me you only stumble on the website through news aggregators like this one you probably won't have any issues to get to the article without paying, 99.9% of the time I land on these sites is from a HN link. Most of the time I don’t find the first paragraph interesting enough to keep reading and close it. I get hit by those paywalls a lot.

by eps 7y ago

jwr 7y ago

Yes, HN should take a stand here: all links should point to the open web. I realize that there is lots of interesting content that is not on the web, and that's fine. It's just that HN links should not point to it. We are losing the concept of the open web, and I thought HN would be the community that would understand the problem.

rootlocus 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21779375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21779375
- grenoire 7y ago
  Sure, that's great it's written down. Doesn't mean we have to agree to the rules. The complaints about paywalled articles are warranted, and we should take a stance about it whether the debate itself is viewed as off-topic or not. It's turned into a form of protest, at this point.

simias 7y ago

I can just select "free" and click through to get the article. Admittedly they say that you can only access "a limited number of articles every month" but I think that's a reasonable compromise because: - if like me you only stumble on the website through news aggregators like this one you probably won't have any issues to get to the article without paying, - if on the other hand you read enough articles to hit the hard paywall then clearly you get something out of this particular website and it's not unreasonable for them to ask for you to pay for it IMO. So I really think it's fine to post these types of articles on HN.

Semaphor 7y ago
> if like me you only stumble on the website through news aggregators like this one you probably won't have any issues to get to the article without paying, 99.9% of the time I land on these sites is from a HN link. Most of the time I don’t find the first paragraph interesting enough to keep reading and close it. I get hit by those paywalls a lot.