5 ms·

Ask HN: Why HN lets sharing content that is behind a paywall e.g. WSJ?

• bristleworm 7y ago
  True, although I wouldn't like prohibiting paywalls. Maybe displaying [Paywall] next to the title would be a solution?
  • milkers 7y ago
    Yep, that convention could have really worked.
  • tastroder 7y ago
    The domain is visible next to the submission. Tags like [video] and [pdf] are useful when it isn't completely obvious but the WSJ domain is already strong enough of an indication to check the comments for alternatives imho if that's something you need.
  • tomhoward 7y ago
    That wouldn't be appropriate because articles with hard paywalls aren't allowed on HN. If it's on the front page of HN, it's a signal that the article can be accessed by anyone. It may need a workaround, which someone will post in the comments. If no workaround exists (e.g. using http://archive.is/ http://archive.is/ or https://outline.com/ https://outline.com/), the article should be flagged and removed from the front page. The FAQ covers this: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
• gtirloni 7y ago
  Let me be the devil's advocate and ask: Why should paywalled content be penalized?
  • psv1 7y ago
    from OP: > I frustrate when I clicked to a title or entry and when I go to the tab I see that I need to pay for a subscription to see the content. I think this creates a great struggle in an open community like HN.
  • trilinearnz 7y ago
    By presenting a barrier to entry for accessing the content, the volume of discussion is reduced since a smaller portion of the community can get to it. This is particularly undesirable when a free alternative may exist. The quality of the discussion may also reduce, as the non-subscribers can only respond to commenters without benefit of context of the original material. Should enough of these posts exist, the effects could impact the community at-large; resulting in a decrease in diversity of opinion, and the popularity and relevance of HN as a site. This, in turn, could give rise to, or cause a traffic shift towards, more open competitors.
• busymom0 7y ago
  Don't have an answer for why but usually when I find a paywall, I paste the link on either archive.org or archive.is and find the article without paywall. archive.org often works better.
• LUmBULtERA 7y ago
  Because some valuable content may cost money to access. FWIW, at least many/most U.S. library systems let you access such paywalled content for free, so I recommend getting yourself a library card if you're in the U.S. :).
• tomhoward 7y ago
  This topic gets questioned/debated weekly, including most times a paywalled article gets on the front page. It is answered in the FAQ [1] and re-iterated frequently by dang. Paywalled pages are OK if a bypass is available. If there is one, usually someone will post it in the comments. If nobody has yet, you could try viewing the article in http://archive.is/ http://archive.is/ or https://outline.com/ https://outline.com/, and if it works, share the link here. If no paywall bypass is available, the item should not be on HN, so you should flag it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
  • omosubi 7y ago
    Can I make a feature request to have the non paywalled version as a separate link next to the post? Seems like there are a fair number of sites that this could be generated for automatically(wsj etc.)
    • tomhoward 7y ago
      I can think of several reasons - some to do with tech implementation and some to do with things like dimplomacy with publishers and copyright issues - why it would be better for this to be handled organically by the community. I know the status quo seems imperfect; it absolutely is, but thoughtful consideration always leads to the conclusion that the status quo is the least-worst of the available options.
• italiano 7y ago
  People w subscriptions should just copy and paste the articles in the comments