3 ms·

I don't really buy this. I think I technically have subscriptions to both the Washington Post and New York Times that my wife purchased that I assume are valid

I don't really buy this. I think I technically have subscriptions to both the Washington Post and New York Times that my wife purchased that I assume are valid for an entire household, and I used to subscribe to the LA Times when I was younger and read a physical newspaper. The consumption model now just isn't comparable, though. If I was regularly going to my city newspaper's website to figure out what was going on, I'd pay them. But that isn't what is happening. Instead, their links are getting spammed all over the web to link aggregation sites like Hacker News, mixed in with links to non-paywalled content, from a universe of thousand of providers, many of which provide all of the content for free. Subscribing to one newspaper is fine, but there is no conceivable world in which I'm going to purchase subscriptions to every paywalled site I ever encounter a link to, especially when I usually don't know before clicking that it is paywalled. Nonetheless, being able to meaningfully participate in the conversations generated by the article on link aggregator sites like this that provide comment sections means I need to read the articles, doesn't it? If the only options for consistently being able to do that are either 1) purchase 300+ distinct subscriptions to sites where I have no idea if I'm ever going back again, or 2) bypass the paywalls, I'm going to bypass the paywalls.

tablespoon 4y ago
> Nonetheless, being able to meaningfully participate in the conversations generated by the article on link aggregator sites like this that provide comment sections means I need to read the articles, doesn't it? If the only options for consistently being able to do that are either 1) purchase 300+ distinct subscriptions to sites where I have no idea if I'm ever going back again, or 2) bypass the paywalls, I'm going to bypass the paywalls. You're looking at it purely from the perspective of a consumer, which misses pretty significant parts of the picture. Someone needed to get paid to produced a lot of that content, and in many cases they won't have the revenue to do that without a paywall. Your justification isn't too different from one that goes "if I want to meaningfully participate in American society, I need a car. However I don't want to pay $30,000+ for one, so if I can pick locks and hotwire a car to get the transportation I want, I'll do that instead of paying."
- Mordisquitos 4y ago
  > You're looking at it purely from the perspective of a consumer, which misses pretty significant parts of the picture. Someone needed to get paid to produced a lot of that content, and in many cases they won't have the revenue to do that without a paywall. And nothing is stopping businesses from implementing an actual paywall, such that you must log in to see the content. Under such a model nothing short of actual copyright violation, i.e. somebody with access to the content making it available elsewhere, would make it possible to see the content without paying. If content producers truly care that we don't "bypass" their paywall, the solution is trivial. Log in to see. No login, no see.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > And nothing is stopping businesses from implementing an actual paywall, such that you must log in to see the content. Under such a model nothing short of actual copyright violation, i.e. somebody with access to the content making it available elsewhere, would make it possible to see the content without paying. I'd imagine they're being put in a difficult due to search, which why they're doing it the way they're doing it. And honestly, your justification rings hollow. It's akin to saying it's OK to steal if the anti-theft technology isn't there are is too easy to defeat. If you take my car from me, it's still theft if I left the doors unlocked an the key in the ignition.
    - Mordisquitos 4y ago
      Difficulties due to search? Well I have difficulties due to search too, when I find an article that briefly tries to appear open access to entice me and then suddenly plasters a client-side paywall on me. That's why I am doing it. I think we're long past using "theft" as an analogy for access to content. If I take a car from you I am depriving you of your car, and I would be able to profit from it if I were to sell it on the black market—that's what makes it theft. Let's not forget that at no point am I talking about gaining unauthorised access to a computer system, nor about making use of the content to the detriment of the copyright holder (publishing it elsewhere etc.). All I am doing is making use of my personal property in whichever way I please, and that sometimes happens to be reading the content that has already been sent to me by a business in whichever way it pleased. I am depriving nobody by activating Web Developer Tools in Firefox after having clicked a link to a website and being able to see the data that has already been sent to my browser. In fact, the website won't even be aware that I "stole" from them rather than decided not to subscribe. Honestly, what rings hollow to me is so much moralising around wanting people to feel guilty for being able to circumvent the unnecessarily weak paywalls implemented by businesses which, let's not forget, are designed in that way for the businesses' own benefit and often to the detriment of the user's interest. A better analogy would be if a music venue insisted on playing with no sound-proofing to hopefully attract customers from the street, but expected any nearby homes to keep their own windows closed so they must pay if they want to listen to the music.

tablespoon 4y ago

> Nonetheless, being able to meaningfully participate in the conversations generated by the article on link aggregator sites like this that provide comment sections means I need to read the articles, doesn't it? If the only options for consistently being able to do that are either 1) purchase 300+ distinct subscriptions to sites where I have no idea if I'm ever going back again, or 2) bypass the paywalls, I'm going to bypass the paywalls. You're looking at it purely from the perspective of a consumer, which misses pretty significant parts of the picture. Someone needed to get paid to produced a lot of that content, and in many cases they won't have the revenue to do that without a paywall. Your justification isn't too different from one that goes "if I want to meaningfully participate in American society, I need a car. However I don't want to pay $30,000+ for one, so if I can pick locks and hotwire a car to get the transportation I want, I'll do that instead of paying."

Mordisquitos 4y ago
> You're looking at it purely from the perspective of a consumer, which misses pretty significant parts of the picture. Someone needed to get paid to produced a lot of that content, and in many cases they won't have the revenue to do that without a paywall. And nothing is stopping businesses from implementing an actual paywall, such that you must log in to see the content. Under such a model nothing short of actual copyright violation, i.e. somebody with access to the content making it available elsewhere, would make it possible to see the content without paying. If content producers truly care that we don't "bypass" their paywall, the solution is trivial. Log in to see. No login, no see.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > And nothing is stopping businesses from implementing an actual paywall, such that you must log in to see the content. Under such a model nothing short of actual copyright violation, i.e. somebody with access to the content making it available elsewhere, would make it possible to see the content without paying. I'd imagine they're being put in a difficult due to search, which why they're doing it the way they're doing it. And honestly, your justification rings hollow. It's akin to saying it's OK to steal if the anti-theft technology isn't there are is too easy to defeat. If you take my car from me, it's still theft if I left the doors unlocked an the key in the ignition.
  - Mordisquitos 4y ago
    Difficulties due to search? Well I have difficulties due to search too, when I find an article that briefly tries to appear open access to entice me and then suddenly plasters a client-side paywall on me. That's why I am doing it. I think we're long past using "theft" as an analogy for access to content. If I take a car from you I am depriving you of your car, and I would be able to profit from it if I were to sell it on the black market—that's what makes it theft. Let's not forget that at no point am I talking about gaining unauthorised access to a computer system, nor about making use of the content to the detriment of the copyright holder (publishing it elsewhere etc.). All I am doing is making use of my personal property in whichever way I please, and that sometimes happens to be reading the content that has already been sent to me by a business in whichever way it pleased. I am depriving nobody by activating Web Developer Tools in Firefox after having clicked a link to a website and being able to see the data that has already been sent to my browser. In fact, the website won't even be aware that I "stole" from them rather than decided not to subscribe. Honestly, what rings hollow to me is so much moralising around wanting people to feel guilty for being able to circumvent the unnecessarily weak paywalls implemented by businesses which, let's not forget, are designed in that way for the businesses' own benefit and often to the detriment of the user's interest. A better analogy would be if a music venue insisted on playing with no sound-proofing to hopefully attract customers from the street, but expected any nearby homes to keep their own windows closed so they must pay if they want to listen to the music.