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There is no free lunch. Journalism isn't free. Labor isn't free. We certainly aren't entitled to the free use of the products of each other's labor. Sure, but

There is no free lunch. Journalism isn't free. Labor isn't free. We certainly aren't entitled to the free use of the products of each other's labor. Sure, but it's rude to present something and then take it away. Google used to downrank sites who did this, anyone remember how awful experts exchange was? If they want to have a paywall then they should have a paywall.

thinkmassive 4y ago
Exactly, this is a dark pattern because it uses up the visitor’s bandwidth before dropping a paywall in front. On a similar note it’s using unnecessary power (quite possibly from a battery of limited capacity) rendering a paywall with an effect nobody wants to see, except probably the people who made it. There’s an easy solution: HTTP response 402: payment required
- seanw444 4y ago
  Websites forgo 402, because it's not mandatory, and of course they want your eyes to land on the page first. Gotta get that marketing in.
- throw10920 4y ago
  HTTP 402 is like Hashcash[1] - greatly underrated and/or unknown, and yet extremely effective in solving its target problem. In 402's case, if it was, say, legislated by the government, then the following would happen: (1) Users wouldn't be bait-and-switch'ed by a paywall that revealed part of the content before appearing (2) Companies would need to band together to implement a micropayments framework (3) Lasseiz-faire maximalists wouldn't be able to complain because the only requirement would be that paywalls be signalled by an HTTP status code The only potential downside is that companies might, instead of making a common micropayments API, instead just use Google, or even worse, not use any common platform and instead make consumers sign up for a new account for each site. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash
  - thinkmassive 4y ago
    Agree 100% on the effectiveness and it being underrated. Lightning Service Authentication Tokens[1] (LSATs) provide a standard that’s usable today. With a Lightning Network browser integration like Alby[2] you can access paywalled content behind a proxy like Aperture[3], and it’s a very smooth process already. [1] https://lsat.tech https://lsat.tech [2] https://getalby.com/ https://getalby.com/ [3] https://github.com/lightninglabs/aperture https://github.com/lightninglabs/aperture
Root_Denied 4y ago
Experts exchange was the site that finally got me to install a chrome extension that would let me blacklist domains in my search results.

thinkmassive 4y ago

Exactly, this is a dark pattern because it uses up the visitor’s bandwidth before dropping a paywall in front. On a similar note it’s using unnecessary power (quite possibly from a battery of limited capacity) rendering a paywall with an effect nobody wants to see, except probably the people who made it. There’s an easy solution: HTTP response 402: payment required

seanw444 4y ago
Websites forgo 402, because it's not mandatory, and of course they want your eyes to land on the page first. Gotta get that marketing in.
throw10920 4y ago
HTTP 402 is like Hashcash[1] - greatly underrated and/or unknown, and yet extremely effective in solving its target problem. In 402's case, if it was, say, legislated by the government, then the following would happen: (1) Users wouldn't be bait-and-switch'ed by a paywall that revealed part of the content before appearing (2) Companies would need to band together to implement a micropayments framework (3) Lasseiz-faire maximalists wouldn't be able to complain because the only requirement would be that paywalls be signalled by an HTTP status code The only potential downside is that companies might, instead of making a common micropayments API, instead just use Google, or even worse, not use any common platform and instead make consumers sign up for a new account for each site. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash
- thinkmassive 4y ago
  Agree 100% on the effectiveness and it being underrated. Lightning Service Authentication Tokens[1] (LSATs) provide a standard that’s usable today. With a Lightning Network browser integration like Alby[2] you can access paywalled content behind a proxy like Aperture[3], and it’s a very smooth process already. [1] https://lsat.tech https://lsat.tech [2] https://getalby.com/ https://getalby.com/ [3] https://github.com/lightninglabs/aperture https://github.com/lightninglabs/aperture

Root_Denied 4y ago

Experts exchange was the site that finally got me to install a chrome extension that would let me blacklist domains in my search results.