5 ms·

Please Stop Posting Medium and NYT and WP Articles

43 points by ZguideZ 7y ago

I can't be the only one who has been locked out of Medium because I click on interesting titles on HN and quickly reach my limit. I don't want to upgrade Medium, I don't want to pay to get past paywalls.

ZguideZ 7y ago
If you must post Medium links, at least post them from a twitter account to save the step of bypassing the paywall https://lifehacker.com/how-to-read-medium-articles-for-free-1840047253 https://lifehacker.com/how-to-read-medium-articles-for-free-...
allears 7y ago
You're not the only one. I always check the article source. I never click on Medium or WP, although I can read NYT using my wife's subscription. There's others too, sites are getting more aggressive about demanding money. As far as I'm concerned, there are very few sites I'm willng to subscribe to.
wpasc 7y ago
Isn't this a solved issue, dead horse, decided discussion, etc.? This comes up on every paywalled article. These sites sometimes have interesting content so we allow them to be posted. Some great pieces are written by very established news papers with skilled career journalists. Many members pay for these sites, others often post workarounds. Why automatically ignore all the paywalled sites that may in fact contain high quality content? If such articles are so truly unpopular then they won't make frontpage, can't that filter be sufficient enough?
playeren 7y ago
I like free stuff too, but I like ad-free experiences even more. I feel I have to support an imperfect alternative, rather than let everything become ad financed. That said, I am unwilling - and frankly unable - to subscribe to every media that occasionally posts quality content. So, for soft paywalls I occasionally use outline.com, and hard paywalls I just ignore. Maybe there is a business in creating groupbuys for subs. A humblebundle for subscribtion media.
- elektor 7y ago
  Apple News and https://scroll.com/ https://scroll.com/ come to mind.
Forge36 7y ago
That or there need to be a way to filter sources, being able to read the article can prevent a good discussion.
kgwxd 7y ago
I build a FF add-on for my self that applies CSS styles to elements with text or attribute values matching a regular expression to solve exactly this issue, for exactly these sites, plus a bunch more. My HN looks like this [1] and, no matter where I go on the internet, links to those sites are never even given a chance to lure me in. [1] https://i.imgur.com/Xo4k5Sj.png https://i.imgur.com/Xo4k5Sj.png
bediger4000 7y ago
I have a WaPo account, started paying for their journalism in 2016. But I typically don't click Medium or NYT links. I'll click NYT links more than Medium because they're generally higher quality.
gremlinsinc 7y ago
f12 - Application tab - clear site data. Enjoy article. Works for NYT, Medium, WP, not sure about WSJ.
umeshgmrl 7y ago
To escape the paywall, right click on the link -> open in incognito. Problem solved.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
neeksHN 7y ago
I've gotten around this by disabling cookies and javascript on a per site basis. These sites require blocking both javascript and cookies: NYT, Washington Post, MIT Technology Review, Wired, National Geographic and LA Times These sites require only blocking cookies: Medium, Scientific American, Quartz, The Atlantic, Bloomberg and Harvard Business Review The one downside is when the linked article is an "interactive feature/story" and it's a site which requires blocking javascript. It's an annoyance to temporarily allow such an article's source, but I'd rather have to deal with that than reaching their "free limit". I'd much prefer if submitters choose more user-respecting sources, but until then I refuse to feel guilty over stopping these intrusive sites and their dark patterns. The only source I wish was permanently banned is Financial Times -- every article is paywalled and provides no snippet.
dineshdb 7y ago
I use temporary containers in firefox. I also have gripe that most of the articles in Medium are non-archivable so I have no way of knowing if the articles I find useful will be available next year.
mekane8 7y ago
I subscribed to NYT based on the number of interesting articles that get posted here and their consistently high quality. I won't subscribe to Medium because the quality is very spotty, but I don't mind stories getting linked here. I can check the link first, and it doesn't ruin my day when I hit my Medium limit. If they don't want me seeing their content I'm happy not to waste my time on their site.
onyva 7y ago
+1

43 points by ZguideZ 7y ago

ZguideZ 7y ago

If you must post Medium links, at least post them from a twitter account to save the step of bypassing the paywall https://lifehacker.com/how-to-read-medium-articles-for-free-1840047253 https://lifehacker.com/how-to-read-medium-articles-for-free-...

allears 7y ago

You're not the only one. I always check the article source. I never click on Medium or WP, although I can read NYT using my wife's subscription. There's others too, sites are getting more aggressive about demanding money. As far as I'm concerned, there are very few sites I'm willng to subscribe to.

wpasc 7y ago

Isn't this a solved issue, dead horse, decided discussion, etc.? This comes up on every paywalled article. These sites sometimes have interesting content so we allow them to be posted. Some great pieces are written by very established news papers with skilled career journalists. Many members pay for these sites, others often post workarounds. Why automatically ignore all the paywalled sites that may in fact contain high quality content? If such articles are so truly unpopular then they won't make frontpage, can't that filter be sufficient enough?

playeren 7y ago

I like free stuff too, but I like ad-free experiences even more. I feel I have to support an imperfect alternative, rather than let everything become ad financed. That said, I am unwilling - and frankly unable - to subscribe to every media that occasionally posts quality content. So, for soft paywalls I occasionally use outline.com, and hard paywalls I just ignore. Maybe there is a business in creating groupbuys for subs. A humblebundle for subscribtion media.

elektor 7y ago
Apple News and https://scroll.com/ https://scroll.com/ come to mind.

Forge36 7y ago

That or there need to be a way to filter sources, being able to read the article can prevent a good discussion.

kgwxd 7y ago

I build a FF add-on for my self that applies CSS styles to elements with text or attribute values matching a regular expression to solve exactly this issue, for exactly these sites, plus a bunch more. My HN looks like this [1] and, no matter where I go on the internet, links to those sites are never even given a chance to lure me in. [1] https://i.imgur.com/Xo4k5Sj.png https://i.imgur.com/Xo4k5Sj.png

bediger4000 7y ago

I have a WaPo account, started paying for their journalism in 2016. But I typically don't click Medium or NYT links. I'll click NYT links more than Medium because they're generally higher quality.

gremlinsinc 7y ago

f12 - Application tab - clear site data. Enjoy article. Works for NYT, Medium, WP, not sure about WSJ.

umeshgmrl 7y ago

To escape the paywall, right click on the link -> open in incognito. Problem solved.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

neeksHN 7y ago

I've gotten around this by disabling cookies and javascript on a per site basis. These sites require blocking both javascript and cookies: NYT, Washington Post, MIT Technology Review, Wired, National Geographic and LA Times These sites require only blocking cookies: Medium, Scientific American, Quartz, The Atlantic, Bloomberg and Harvard Business Review The one downside is when the linked article is an "interactive feature/story" and it's a site which requires blocking javascript. It's an annoyance to temporarily allow such an article's source, but I'd rather have to deal with that than reaching their "free limit". I'd much prefer if submitters choose more user-respecting sources, but until then I refuse to feel guilty over stopping these intrusive sites and their dark patterns. The only source I wish was permanently banned is Financial Times -- every article is paywalled and provides no snippet.

dineshdb 7y ago

I use temporary containers in firefox. I also have gripe that most of the articles in Medium are non-archivable so I have no way of knowing if the articles I find useful will be available next year.

mekane8 7y ago

I subscribed to NYT based on the number of interesting articles that get posted here and their consistently high quality. I won't subscribe to Medium because the quality is very spotty, but I don't mind stories getting linked here. I can check the link first, and it doesn't ruin my day when I hit my Medium limit. If they don't want me seeing their content I'm happy not to waste my time on their site.

onyva 7y ago