4 ms·

I completely agree, and can’t understand the downvotes. I’ve felt this way for years at HN, and a paywalled article is a great way to get me to just hit ‘back’,

I completely agree, and can’t understand the downvotes. I’ve felt this way for years at HN, and a paywalled article is a great way to get me to just hit ‘back’, or open it in Private mode and read it anyway. If there’s a tag at least I’d know to avoid it to start. As many others have mentioned, there’s no pay-per single article option, this would obviously be a very different situation if that was the case.

dang 7y ago
It's because because this is an extremely well-worn topic and the comments on it are always the same. The answer is: if there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the thread. This is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html and there's more explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20paywalls&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... Note https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 from 5 years ago. Paywalls suck, but HN would suck worse without NYT, WSJ, Economist, etc., articles, so workarounds are what we're stuck with until the publication industry gets its act together the way music eventually did.
- realtalk_sp 7y ago
  Friendly suggestion: paywalled articles should be somehow flagged explicitly in the title so the community can collectively decide how to treat them and users can choose not to click into or comment on them. The origin domain isn't enough information and the current approach is immensely, needlessly frustrating.
ThrowawayR2 7y ago
> "I completely agree, and can’t understand the downvotes." The reason can be found in the FAQ: "It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. ... But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic."

dang 7y ago

It's because because this is an extremely well-worn topic and the comments on it are always the same. The answer is: if there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the thread. This is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html and there's more explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20paywalls&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... Note https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 from 5 years ago. Paywalls suck, but HN would suck worse without NYT, WSJ, Economist, etc., articles, so workarounds are what we're stuck with until the publication industry gets its act together the way music eventually did.

realtalk_sp 7y ago
Friendly suggestion: paywalled articles should be somehow flagged explicitly in the title so the community can collectively decide how to treat them and users can choose not to click into or comment on them. The origin domain isn't enough information and the current approach is immensely, needlessly frustrating.

ThrowawayR2 7y ago

> "I completely agree, and can’t understand the downvotes." The reason can be found in the FAQ: "It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. ... But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic."