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Let me just say -- and I'll get voted down for this -- that I think breaching paywalls is generally immoral. While I can imagine some moral reasons, I think mos

Let me just say -- and I'll get voted down for this -- that I think breaching paywalls is generally immoral. While I can imagine some moral reasons, I think most people are doing it even though they can pay. They are taking someone's work and using it without permission while refusing to pay. Of course I may be biased because I make some of my living creating content behind paywalls. If free access and ad support were possible, I would choose them first. But they aren't. To me, this extension and the people who support it aren't any different from those who go into restaurants, order food, eat it and then leave without paying. And there will be those who trot out some extreme rhetoric about world hunger or something to justify their actions. Google is blocking this extension because it's bad for the web as a whole. Don't empower people who destroy the information sources and turn the web into a fact desert. Support those who create knowledge and share it fairly and equally, albeit at a price.

vorpalhex 4y ago
The issue with paywalls is the bait and switch - you push the whole content for SEO then force users to pay money. Nobody cares if you want to sell the secrets of the universe for $5000/mo. We care about the bait and switch. By setting up this bait and switch, you hurt your own paywall - if the search engine can get a full copy, so can I. Want these extensions to stop working? Stop the bait and switch.
- jayass 4y ago
  Couldn't agree more
- geysersam 4y ago
  Why is that relevant? They've created their content - if they want to share it with a search engine that's none of your business. The technology does not allow them to do this without sharing it with you as well. But that is ethically irrelevant. (Of course, we also deserve a good search engine allowing us to remove paywalled sites and seo spam from our results.)
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    "FREE VACATIONS! (you have to sit through a timeshare presentation and there are catches" We widely regard the above as unethical. Adding content to a search engine literally says "you can come read this content!". That is the purpose of search engines. Even Google penalizes paywall behavior and will downrank them - which forces the paywall people to get more clever. Sorry but don't abuse search engines and users to sell your content. Buy ads like a big boy.
    - abbusfoflouotne 4y ago
      I wouldn't say it is necessarily immature to use a paywall as opposed to ads. I for one sometimes prefer paying for a site just so i dont have to see ads. Though I do agree, the bait and switch aspect of finessing seo and such leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Glad google penalizes such behavior
    - geysersam 4y ago
      They're doing something bad - so it's okay to steal their stuff. Did I get that right?
      - vorpalhex 4y ago
        They are being gamed by their own game. Nobody took their content - they submitted it to search engines and are upset the search engine provides a cached copy. If they don't like it they can not submit to search engines.
        geysersam 4y ago
        > nobody took their content According to the law, someone did. Just because something's available on request from a server does not mean it's up for grabs.
        vorpalhex 4y ago
        > Just because something's available on request from a server does not mean it's up for grabs. When you give the content out for free to the indexer, you have given a copy to the world. Google search is not your advertising machine - you can pay for that priviledge if you would care for it.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  What's the bait and switch involved?
  - thayne 4y ago
    The content is available to search engines, and they are highly optimized for SEO, so they show up high in search results. So users expect by clicking the link in the search result they can see the rest of the content. Then you get hit with a paywall.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      A third party that indexes the content for searchability and shows too much of it to its users is not bait and switch. Come on.
      - vorpalhex 4y ago
        That is the deal of being indexed. That which you share to the indexer is shared to the world.
      - thayne 4y ago
        The news sites return different content to search engines than they do to browsers. Which means you get a different site than what is shown in the search preview, specifically a paywall page. I would be a lot less annoyed with these paywalls if they didn't rank so highly on search results, or at the very least indicated they were paywalled on the search page and were easy to filter out.
- hk__2 4y ago
  > By setting up this bait and switch, you hurt your own paywall - if the search engine can get a full copy, so can I. I don’t get this. They do whatever they want with their content. Editors give free book copies to journalists; that doesn’t gives you the right to have one as well.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    You can't give a free copy to the local library to drive sales and be upset when people borrow the book and read it from the local library.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      And you cannot take a book from someone who asks for money, refuse to pay, and say "but it's free at the library!" The difference is consent.
      - vorpalhex 4y ago
        But we are literally getting the copy here from the library because the author gave the book to the library. Google is obeying robots.txt. Google caches a copy of what you serve and gives that out. That is part of the deal.
    - hk__2 4y ago
      > You can't give a free copy to the local library to drive sales Nobody does that. The comparison doesn’t hold.
      - vorpalhex 4y ago
        You are doing that when you let Google past the paywall.
  - stickfigure 4y ago
    ...and if they post their content to the public, the public can read it. Giving content to journalists is not the same as giving your content to Google to index in their search engine and caches. The later is not private.
- kube-system 4y ago
  The fact that you can do something that you are not authorized to do doesn't mitigate the fact that you don't have consent to do so. Just because we expect criminals to break the internet without consent doesn't mean everyone is morally absolved to do the same.
  - hedora 4y ago
    Sites that serve content to Google's crawlers, but then slap up a paywall are spamming users, and unfairly drowning out content producers that are playing by the rules. Last time I checked, they were doing this without Google's consent. As for the read path, the sites consented to Google indexing their stuff, and Google consents to letting people read the crawler cache. I don't see the issue.
trasz 4y ago
Paywalls are generally immoral. They are designed to deprive users of their laws. Thus, anything that helps breach paywalls is morally good.
chasil 4y ago
Is it immoral to use an adblocker? Many sites present extensive UI interruptions in the hopes that you will allow their ads. Is it immoral to browse with Javascript disabled? Does morality require foreign code to run on your local system in order for these intrusive elements to actively manipulate (and potentially exploit) you? Is it immoral to rewrite a url in such a way that access is allowed? See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16906571 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16906571 In the days of newsprint, ads might have been garish, but they were bound into the media and they could not track you. Advertising now involves so much more surveillance, that I think the majority of the immorality is not with the end user. ps I have upvoted you.

vorpalhex 4y ago

The issue with paywalls is the bait and switch - you push the whole content for SEO then force users to pay money. Nobody cares if you want to sell the secrets of the universe for $5000/mo. We care about the bait and switch. By setting up this bait and switch, you hurt your own paywall - if the search engine can get a full copy, so can I. Want these extensions to stop working? Stop the bait and switch.

jayass 4y ago
Couldn't agree more
geysersam 4y ago
Why is that relevant? They've created their content - if they want to share it with a search engine that's none of your business. The technology does not allow them to do this without sharing it with you as well. But that is ethically irrelevant. (Of course, we also deserve a good search engine allowing us to remove paywalled sites and seo spam from our results.)
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  "FREE VACATIONS! (you have to sit through a timeshare presentation and there are catches" We widely regard the above as unethical. Adding content to a search engine literally says "you can come read this content!". That is the purpose of search engines. Even Google penalizes paywall behavior and will downrank them - which forces the paywall people to get more clever. Sorry but don't abuse search engines and users to sell your content. Buy ads like a big boy.
  - abbusfoflouotne 4y ago
    I wouldn't say it is necessarily immature to use a paywall as opposed to ads. I for one sometimes prefer paying for a site just so i dont have to see ads. Though I do agree, the bait and switch aspect of finessing seo and such leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Glad google penalizes such behavior
  - geysersam 4y ago
    They're doing something bad - so it's okay to steal their stuff. Did I get that right?
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      They are being gamed by their own game. Nobody took their content - they submitted it to search engines and are upset the search engine provides a cached copy. If they don't like it they can not submit to search engines.
      - geysersam 4y ago
        > nobody took their content According to the law, someone did. Just because something's available on request from a server does not mean it's up for grabs.
        vorpalhex 4y ago
        > Just because something's available on request from a server does not mean it's up for grabs. When you give the content out for free to the indexer, you have given a copy to the world. Google search is not your advertising machine - you can pay for that priviledge if you would care for it.
robertlagrant 4y ago
What's the bait and switch involved?
- thayne 4y ago
  The content is available to search engines, and they are highly optimized for SEO, so they show up high in search results. So users expect by clicking the link in the search result they can see the rest of the content. Then you get hit with a paywall.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    A third party that indexes the content for searchability and shows too much of it to its users is not bait and switch. Come on.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      That is the deal of being indexed. That which you share to the indexer is shared to the world.
    - thayne 4y ago
      The news sites return different content to search engines than they do to browsers. Which means you get a different site than what is shown in the search preview, specifically a paywall page. I would be a lot less annoyed with these paywalls if they didn't rank so highly on search results, or at the very least indicated they were paywalled on the search page and were easy to filter out.
hk__2 4y ago
> By setting up this bait and switch, you hurt your own paywall - if the search engine can get a full copy, so can I. I don’t get this. They do whatever they want with their content. Editors give free book copies to journalists; that doesn’t gives you the right to have one as well.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  You can't give a free copy to the local library to drive sales and be upset when people borrow the book and read it from the local library.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    And you cannot take a book from someone who asks for money, refuse to pay, and say "but it's free at the library!" The difference is consent.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      But we are literally getting the copy here from the library because the author gave the book to the library. Google is obeying robots.txt. Google caches a copy of what you serve and gives that out. That is part of the deal.
  - hk__2 4y ago
    > You can't give a free copy to the local library to drive sales Nobody does that. The comparison doesn’t hold.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      You are doing that when you let Google past the paywall.
- stickfigure 4y ago
  ...and if they post their content to the public, the public can read it. Giving content to journalists is not the same as giving your content to Google to index in their search engine and caches. The later is not private.
kube-system 4y ago
The fact that you can do something that you are not authorized to do doesn't mitigate the fact that you don't have consent to do so. Just because we expect criminals to break the internet without consent doesn't mean everyone is morally absolved to do the same.
- hedora 4y ago
  Sites that serve content to Google's crawlers, but then slap up a paywall are spamming users, and unfairly drowning out content producers that are playing by the rules. Last time I checked, they were doing this without Google's consent. As for the read path, the sites consented to Google indexing their stuff, and Google consents to letting people read the crawler cache. I don't see the issue.

trasz 4y ago

Paywalls are generally immoral. They are designed to deprive users of their laws. Thus, anything that helps breach paywalls is morally good.

chasil 4y ago

Is it immoral to use an adblocker? Many sites present extensive UI interruptions in the hopes that you will allow their ads. Is it immoral to browse with Javascript disabled? Does morality require foreign code to run on your local system in order for these intrusive elements to actively manipulate (and potentially exploit) you? Is it immoral to rewrite a url in such a way that access is allowed? See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16906571 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16906571 In the days of newsprint, ads might have been garish, but they were bound into the media and they could not track you. Advertising now involves so much more surveillance, that I think the majority of the immorality is not with the end user. ps I have upvoted you.