7 ms·

Democracy Dies Behind Paywalls – Paywalled

79 points by dschuetz 2y ago

notnef 2y ago
Kinda funny that this article gets cut off by a paywall
- dschuetz 2y ago
  That's essentially the point, it's ironic that they've put an article that already criticizes paywalls in the headline behind a paywall.
anfilt 2y ago
Oh the irony lol.
- karmakaze 2y ago
  Perhaps smugness: enjoy your privilege of democracy.
zer00eyz 2y ago
https://archive.is/0kiur https://archive.is/0kiur To get around the paywall...
- hcfman 2y ago
  Oh the irony. But thanks…
usr1106 2y ago
Requesting free journalism is like requesting free food. Both are essential, but few would expect food being distributed for free. Subscriptions are fine, I pay for several. But they don't fit every use case. There should be a way to pay for a single article. Some micropayment service(s) so you don't need an account with every web site you might want to read. It has been tried numerous time without success. Not sure when the right time and the right concept will come.
- achow 2y ago
  I always wondered if Spotify could do it for music (which I think are much more zealously protected), why there is no similar service for news articles? Is it because a news article is one time consumption, whereas music is not?
  - browningstreet 2y ago
    Apple News+? It's how I read a bunch of paywalled content -- New Yorker, NYTs, Slate, etc. Is there room for multiple "Paid RSS reader where funds are distributed per article reads or time spent reading"..? Are paid podcasts in the Apple ecosystem successful, or "Join" in Youtube? Maybe people will pay to listen/watch but not to read?
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    There actually was one in the past that did just that. And I don't mean that apple thing because it's way too locked into their walled garden and it's too US centric. Edit: It was blendle. It seems to be still around even. But it's only focused on the Dutch market now, they used to have bigger plans. They only have some magazines now anyway, they used to have all the major newspapers onboard. But anyway in the Netherlands we have an excellent state-owned news company (NOS). They're just funded by taxes. So I'm not bothered to pay for anything else. Also, all the other media are in the clammy hands of 2 huge Belgian media concerns (DPG and Mediahuis) and I have no intention of funding them.
  - reducesuffering 2y ago
    Music and articles aren't so different in time based consumption. Most music is short term, like 90% listener fall off within 6 months. Though there are still classics that maintain relevancy, just as there are articles that stay relevant. Spotify is a great example though, because people would find it preposterous to pay $10/mth to listen to each band they wanted to.
- harwoodjp 2y ago
  > few would expect food being distributed for free uhh
probably_jesus 2y ago
[dead]
egberts1 2y ago
"Democracy dies in Darkness" -- paywalled Washington Post since 2017.
jfengel 2y ago
The paywalls aren't the problem. Information leaks around paywalls. The facts have always been available. You might not be able to get the primary source, but people are always bad about primary sources. People who want to believe disinformation have never let that stop them. If anything, a paywall suggests that somebody has put some effort into gathering that news. People peddling disinformation want to pay you to take it. I believe the real issue is that the disinformation is so popular. It's crafted so that some people want to hear it. It's usually not difficult to refute, but there's so much of it that it that even if you're skeptical it's hard to swat away 100% of it. Putting a paywall between you and the actual news source doesn't help, but even if it were free, it's just too much work. And those who don't want to believe it won't.
troyvit 2y ago
So what's the answer then? Before the internet almost all journalism was "paywalled." You either bought a subscription or an individual copy of what the organization has to offer. Ad-supported journalism is a joke in a society that abuses advertising so thoroughly. Using an ad blocker is more than a convenience, it's a security measure. Arguably it's also better for the environment [1] [2]. One article [3] argues for "non-reformist reforms," which try to mitigate the commercial pressures on journalism. However the article's solution seems to be to switch to public media models and/or government funding. As the article puts it: "Therefore, any initiative that erodes the commercial and anti-democratic design of existing media institutions—by transitioning them into nonprofit outlets, facilitating public media partnerships, unionizing newsrooms, and establishing media cooperatives—can help radicalize news workers and engage communities while laying the groundwork for more transformative change in the future." I honestly don't know how well that'll work, but it's also basically what the article suggests to pay for journalism for a year: "They can enlist foundations or other sponsors to underwrite their work. They can turn to readers who are willing to subscribe, renew their subscriptions, or make added donations to subsidize important coverage during a crucial election." Stengel's article also says, "A large percentage of these Americans see media as being biased. Well, part of the reason they think media are biased is that most fair, accurate, and unbiased news sits behind a wall." That wasn't true 40 years ago and I don't think it's true now. A lot of journalism strives to be unbiased, but that will always be a goal it reaches for, not one it will attain. To say otherwise only continues to erode society's trust of journalism. The money to pay journalists has to come from somewhere. [1] https://marmelab.com/blog/2022/01/17/media-websites-carbon-emissions.html https://marmelab.com/blog/2022/01/17/media-websites-carbon-e... [2] https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7080/8/2/18 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7080/8/2/18 [3] https://lpeproject.org/blog/taking-media-out-of-the-market/ https://lpeproject.org/blog/taking-media-out-of-the-market/
- lakomen 2y ago
  In my city the newspaper puts their daily news on display in their windows for everyone to read for free.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
rmorey 2y ago
Another article I quite like about this (not paywalled!) https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/08/the-truth-is-paywalled-but-the-lies-are-free/ https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/08/the-truth-is-paywalle...
- leotravis10 2y ago
  That piece is so much better and it's still relevant today if you think about it.
hcfman 2y ago
This is so true… and stuff disappears from the internet news a lot. In Europe they have laws that are invoked a lot that should be renamed to the right to politicians to remain unaccountable. Privacy is portayed by the authorities as someone to protect the people, but in reality the people have none and it’s really used to hide the illegal and corrupt actions of government officials.
- thesnide 2y ago
  That's why physical hard copies are often better for historians. But that isn't free.
60secs 2y ago
Too bad there's not a netflix/spotify for journalism. No single journalism source is worth a subscription for 99.9% of people. Aggregated, maybe.
- yifanl 2y ago
  I mean, the NYT/WaPo are basically aggregate sites for journalism?
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    They aren’t true aggregates since stories still go through their editors for filtering.
- afruitpie 2y ago
  Apple News+ is trying to be that. I get it through my Apple One family plan. The home page is shamefully Trump spam and tabloid garbage, but the magazine section isn’t terrible. I read The Atlantic and The New Yorker frequently on it.
  - hedora 2y ago
    The trump spam is probably because you read trump spam just enough to make it display more trump spam. Avoiding that is easier said than done: I used to pay for Apple News+, but ended up clicking on just enough clickbait to only get clickbait in my feed. If they had a way to only allow certain news sources then I’d probably re-subscribe.
    - nozzlegear 2y ago
      I found that you can ignore news stories from certain outlets in Apple News, which I chose to do with certain celebrity gossip outlets that had been taking over my feed. Apparently this only replaces the stories with a placeholder that says "You've blocked this news source". Most of the time that's fine. But place that in the context of how they group related news stories in the feed: if you've got a group of news stories that reads "World War 3 has just started," "President So-and-so dies in attack," "You've blocked this news source," well, you might just be tempted to click on that blocked story. I'd rather they remove it from the feed entirely.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
skybrian 2y ago
At a smaller scale, for an independent writer publishing on Substack, I’m a fan of the model where most articles are free but some are for paid subscribers only. If you’re publishing something of widespread interest, maybe that one should be free. Maybe that would work for larger websites too? They do often have gift links, which are another way to do it. Limited-time promotions seem like a reasonable way to get new subscribers, and an election is an excuse to do it. It would get traffic from people who do last-minute research on less-covered races. I’m skeptical about how much effect it would have on the races where most people have already made up their minds. How would that work? Would it increase turnout?
stefantalpalaru 2y ago
[dead]
LeroyRaz 2y ago
The quality of most (nearly all) media is (embarrassingly) poor though. You often find more serious reporting on YouTube than in the press!! For example, the YouTuber CoffeeZilla gave a far more earnest coverage of SBF than any newspaper I came across. Similarly, I think I would rather read a blog written by an expert on their area of expertise (for free) than read a newspaper's (sloppy) filtering of that. And, if I care deeply enough about a topic, I would rather read a book about it. What service do these newspapers think they serve? To corrupt an adage, I honestly think the best reporting is generally free (e.g. coffeezilla, e.g., excellent in-depth podcasts, e.g. many excellent articles and essays linked via HackerNews, etc...) and the second best is more expensive than most newspapers can afford to be (e.g., a book).
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > YouTuber CoffeeZilla gave a far more earnest coverage of SBF than any newspaper I came across Do you pay for any journalism? Or are you comparing the ad-supported cruft to YouTube? YouTube has great information. But BloombergLaw, for example, remains a far more decisive source than CoffeeZilla. I say this as someone who participated in the FTX estate’s bankruptcy process as an asset purchaser.
  - LeroyRaz 2y ago
    I've read many paywalled articles. HackerNews generally links an archive link, and I also occasionally use institutional access. However, I don't subscribe personally to any news sites. Often, when I do read paywalled articles, I feel embarrassed by how poor they are. On most topics I'm actually informed on, e.g., my area of work, or say reporting on a fully videod courtroom case I've been following, they come across as incredibly ignorant. This is mainly the general newsites though, e.g., the Atlantic, etc... I might check out BloombergLaw. So far, I think the only news providers I respect, are BellingCat (I thought their work with navalny was incredible), PrivateEye (consistently princibled - and funny - satyrists) and I also have a softspot for the BBC.
- BobaFloutist 2y ago
  It's probably true that if you're good enough at evaluating sources, you can find superior technical detail from a free source than from traditional news. The theoretical purpose of traditional news is to be a reputable clearinghouse for skilled researchers and source evaluators to find good enough sources for a wide variety of things. There's not enough time in the day for someone with a different full time job to properly inform themselves on every issue, so, in theory, news publications pay people to make that their full time job. Unfortunately, that's not actually what most people want out of news, and is not something most people are actually willing to pay for, so the average quality of the product has quietly degraded over the years, catalyzed by digital media trends in general and sharply hastened in 2016.
mrkramer 2y ago
News paywalls are deeply problematic because when you "surf" the Web and when you stumble upon some paywalled article, you are either stuck (blocked from viewing the content) and you leave or you view the paywalled article in "pirated" version via our "beloved" archive.is. This dynamic is not good for a news industry as a whole. I never subscribed to a newspaper and I don't know what exactly drives an average Joe to subscribe to one but my assumption is that one or two paywalled articles won't drive someone to subscribe to the newspaper, it would rather frustrate them to get stuck and blocked from reading. Either you will subscribe because of the word of mouth and perceived reputation of the newspaper or you will subscribe because your favorite author is writing for the newspaper you want to subscribe. That's why I find it mind boggling that for example The Economist's news articles are anonymous and not signed by authors. My suggested solutions are: 1. Make old news articles free and really new ones paywalled or 2. Introduce micropayments for each article (for example 10 cents to unlock an article for lifetime) or 3. Aggregate all paywalled articles across different newspapers to some news aggregator and then ask people to subscribe. Tbh, I'm a huge fan of independent journalism and internet blogging which are free and either ad-supported or donation supported.
bsoles 2y ago
The problem with paywalls is that every organization wants your money separately. I don't want to create a separate account with NY Times, YouTube TV, The Guardian, Atlantic, Bloomberg, etc. and pay for each service separately. In particular, I consider each such account a security risk for data breaches and a potential for leaking my private information. Maintaining each account, having separate passwords, dealing with burdensome and intentionally difficult cancellations are all major headaches. I don't want Google and the likes to become more powerful either, but some kind of consolidated access to all such information might be a better approach for the news consumer. Perhaps some kind of pay per "article" model might work better. I would have been more willing to pay something like 25 cents per article if there was a universal access model. I suprise myself saying this, but AOL model was probably a more consumer friendly approach...

79 points by dschuetz 2y ago

notnef 2y ago

Kinda funny that this article gets cut off by a paywall

dschuetz 2y ago
That's essentially the point, it's ironic that they've put an article that already criticizes paywalls in the headline behind a paywall.

anfilt 2y ago

Oh the irony lol.

karmakaze 2y ago
Perhaps smugness: enjoy your privilege of democracy.

zer00eyz 2y ago

https://archive.is/0kiur https://archive.is/0kiur To get around the paywall...

hcfman 2y ago
Oh the irony. But thanks…

usr1106 2y ago

Requesting free journalism is like requesting free food. Both are essential, but few would expect food being distributed for free. Subscriptions are fine, I pay for several. But they don't fit every use case. There should be a way to pay for a single article. Some micropayment service(s) so you don't need an account with every web site you might want to read. It has been tried numerous time without success. Not sure when the right time and the right concept will come.

achow 2y ago
I always wondered if Spotify could do it for music (which I think are much more zealously protected), why there is no similar service for news articles? Is it because a news article is one time consumption, whereas music is not?
- browningstreet 2y ago
  Apple News+? It's how I read a bunch of paywalled content -- New Yorker, NYTs, Slate, etc. Is there room for multiple "Paid RSS reader where funds are distributed per article reads or time spent reading"..? Are paid podcasts in the Apple ecosystem successful, or "Join" in Youtube? Maybe people will pay to listen/watch but not to read?
- wkat4242 2y ago
  There actually was one in the past that did just that. And I don't mean that apple thing because it's way too locked into their walled garden and it's too US centric. Edit: It was blendle. It seems to be still around even. But it's only focused on the Dutch market now, they used to have bigger plans. They only have some magazines now anyway, they used to have all the major newspapers onboard. But anyway in the Netherlands we have an excellent state-owned news company (NOS). They're just funded by taxes. So I'm not bothered to pay for anything else. Also, all the other media are in the clammy hands of 2 huge Belgian media concerns (DPG and Mediahuis) and I have no intention of funding them.
- reducesuffering 2y ago
  Music and articles aren't so different in time based consumption. Most music is short term, like 90% listener fall off within 6 months. Though there are still classics that maintain relevancy, just as there are articles that stay relevant. Spotify is a great example though, because people would find it preposterous to pay $10/mth to listen to each band they wanted to.
harwoodjp 2y ago
> few would expect food being distributed for free uhh

probably_jesus 2y ago

[dead]

egberts1 2y ago

"Democracy dies in Darkness" -- paywalled Washington Post since 2017.

jfengel 2y ago

The paywalls aren't the problem. Information leaks around paywalls. The facts have always been available. You might not be able to get the primary source, but people are always bad about primary sources. People who want to believe disinformation have never let that stop them. If anything, a paywall suggests that somebody has put some effort into gathering that news. People peddling disinformation want to pay you to take it. I believe the real issue is that the disinformation is so popular. It's crafted so that some people want to hear it. It's usually not difficult to refute, but there's so much of it that it that even if you're skeptical it's hard to swat away 100% of it. Putting a paywall between you and the actual news source doesn't help, but even if it were free, it's just too much work. And those who don't want to believe it won't.

troyvit 2y ago

So what's the answer then? Before the internet almost all journalism was "paywalled." You either bought a subscription or an individual copy of what the organization has to offer. Ad-supported journalism is a joke in a society that abuses advertising so thoroughly. Using an ad blocker is more than a convenience, it's a security measure. Arguably it's also better for the environment [1] [2]. One article [3] argues for "non-reformist reforms," which try to mitigate the commercial pressures on journalism. However the article's solution seems to be to switch to public media models and/or government funding. As the article puts it: "Therefore, any initiative that erodes the commercial and anti-democratic design of existing media institutions—by transitioning them into nonprofit outlets, facilitating public media partnerships, unionizing newsrooms, and establishing media cooperatives—can help radicalize news workers and engage communities while laying the groundwork for more transformative change in the future." I honestly don't know how well that'll work, but it's also basically what the article suggests to pay for journalism for a year: "They can enlist foundations or other sponsors to underwrite their work. They can turn to readers who are willing to subscribe, renew their subscriptions, or make added donations to subsidize important coverage during a crucial election." Stengel's article also says, "A large percentage of these Americans see media as being biased. Well, part of the reason they think media are biased is that most fair, accurate, and unbiased news sits behind a wall." That wasn't true 40 years ago and I don't think it's true now. A lot of journalism strives to be unbiased, but that will always be a goal it reaches for, not one it will attain. To say otherwise only continues to erode society's trust of journalism. The money to pay journalists has to come from somewhere. [1] https://marmelab.com/blog/2022/01/17/media-websites-carbon-emissions.html https://marmelab.com/blog/2022/01/17/media-websites-carbon-e... [2] https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7080/8/2/18 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7080/8/2/18 [3] https://lpeproject.org/blog/taking-media-out-of-the-market/ https://lpeproject.org/blog/taking-media-out-of-the-market/

lakomen 2y ago
In my city the newspaper puts their daily news on display in their windows for everyone to read for free.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago

rmorey 2y ago

Another article I quite like about this (not paywalled!) https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/08/the-truth-is-paywalled-but-the-lies-are-free/ https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/08/the-truth-is-paywalle...

leotravis10 2y ago
That piece is so much better and it's still relevant today if you think about it.

hcfman 2y ago

This is so true… and stuff disappears from the internet news a lot. In Europe they have laws that are invoked a lot that should be renamed to the right to politicians to remain unaccountable. Privacy is portayed by the authorities as someone to protect the people, but in reality the people have none and it’s really used to hide the illegal and corrupt actions of government officials.

thesnide 2y ago
That's why physical hard copies are often better for historians. But that isn't free.

60secs 2y ago

Too bad there's not a netflix/spotify for journalism. No single journalism source is worth a subscription for 99.9% of people. Aggregated, maybe.

yifanl 2y ago
I mean, the NYT/WaPo are basically aggregate sites for journalism?
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  They aren’t true aggregates since stories still go through their editors for filtering.
afruitpie 2y ago
Apple News+ is trying to be that. I get it through my Apple One family plan. The home page is shamefully Trump spam and tabloid garbage, but the magazine section isn’t terrible. I read The Atlantic and The New Yorker frequently on it.
- hedora 2y ago
  The trump spam is probably because you read trump spam just enough to make it display more trump spam. Avoiding that is easier said than done: I used to pay for Apple News+, but ended up clicking on just enough clickbait to only get clickbait in my feed. If they had a way to only allow certain news sources then I’d probably re-subscribe.
  - nozzlegear 2y ago
    I found that you can ignore news stories from certain outlets in Apple News, which I chose to do with certain celebrity gossip outlets that had been taking over my feed. Apparently this only replaces the stories with a placeholder that says "You've blocked this news source". Most of the time that's fine. But place that in the context of how they group related news stories in the feed: if you've got a group of news stories that reads "World War 3 has just started," "President So-and-so dies in attack," "You've blocked this news source," well, you might just be tempted to click on that blocked story. I'd rather they remove it from the feed entirely.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

skybrian 2y ago

At a smaller scale, for an independent writer publishing on Substack, I’m a fan of the model where most articles are free but some are for paid subscribers only. If you’re publishing something of widespread interest, maybe that one should be free. Maybe that would work for larger websites too? They do often have gift links, which are another way to do it. Limited-time promotions seem like a reasonable way to get new subscribers, and an election is an excuse to do it. It would get traffic from people who do last-minute research on less-covered races. I’m skeptical about how much effect it would have on the races where most people have already made up their minds. How would that work? Would it increase turnout?

stefantalpalaru 2y ago

[dead]

LeroyRaz 2y ago

The quality of most (nearly all) media is (embarrassingly) poor though. You often find more serious reporting on YouTube than in the press!! For example, the YouTuber CoffeeZilla gave a far more earnest coverage of SBF than any newspaper I came across. Similarly, I think I would rather read a blog written by an expert on their area of expertise (for free) than read a newspaper's (sloppy) filtering of that. And, if I care deeply enough about a topic, I would rather read a book about it. What service do these newspapers think they serve? To corrupt an adage, I honestly think the best reporting is generally free (e.g. coffeezilla, e.g., excellent in-depth podcasts, e.g. many excellent articles and essays linked via HackerNews, etc...) and the second best is more expensive than most newspapers can afford to be (e.g., a book).

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> YouTuber CoffeeZilla gave a far more earnest coverage of SBF than any newspaper I came across Do you pay for any journalism? Or are you comparing the ad-supported cruft to YouTube? YouTube has great information. But BloombergLaw, for example, remains a far more decisive source than CoffeeZilla. I say this as someone who participated in the FTX estate’s bankruptcy process as an asset purchaser.
- LeroyRaz 2y ago
  I've read many paywalled articles. HackerNews generally links an archive link, and I also occasionally use institutional access. However, I don't subscribe personally to any news sites. Often, when I do read paywalled articles, I feel embarrassed by how poor they are. On most topics I'm actually informed on, e.g., my area of work, or say reporting on a fully videod courtroom case I've been following, they come across as incredibly ignorant. This is mainly the general newsites though, e.g., the Atlantic, etc... I might check out BloombergLaw. So far, I think the only news providers I respect, are BellingCat (I thought their work with navalny was incredible), PrivateEye (consistently princibled - and funny - satyrists) and I also have a softspot for the BBC.
BobaFloutist 2y ago
It's probably true that if you're good enough at evaluating sources, you can find superior technical detail from a free source than from traditional news. The theoretical purpose of traditional news is to be a reputable clearinghouse for skilled researchers and source evaluators to find good enough sources for a wide variety of things. There's not enough time in the day for someone with a different full time job to properly inform themselves on every issue, so, in theory, news publications pay people to make that their full time job. Unfortunately, that's not actually what most people want out of news, and is not something most people are actually willing to pay for, so the average quality of the product has quietly degraded over the years, catalyzed by digital media trends in general and sharply hastened in 2016.

mrkramer 2y ago

News paywalls are deeply problematic because when you "surf" the Web and when you stumble upon some paywalled article, you are either stuck (blocked from viewing the content) and you leave or you view the paywalled article in "pirated" version via our "beloved" archive.is. This dynamic is not good for a news industry as a whole. I never subscribed to a newspaper and I don't know what exactly drives an average Joe to subscribe to one but my assumption is that one or two paywalled articles won't drive someone to subscribe to the newspaper, it would rather frustrate them to get stuck and blocked from reading. Either you will subscribe because of the word of mouth and perceived reputation of the newspaper or you will subscribe because your favorite author is writing for the newspaper you want to subscribe. That's why I find it mind boggling that for example The Economist's news articles are anonymous and not signed by authors. My suggested solutions are: 1. Make old news articles free and really new ones paywalled or 2. Introduce micropayments for each article (for example 10 cents to unlock an article for lifetime) or 3. Aggregate all paywalled articles across different newspapers to some news aggregator and then ask people to subscribe. Tbh, I'm a huge fan of independent journalism and internet blogging which are free and either ad-supported or donation supported.

bsoles 2y ago

The problem with paywalls is that every organization wants your money separately. I don't want to create a separate account with NY Times, YouTube TV, The Guardian, Atlantic, Bloomberg, etc. and pay for each service separately. In particular, I consider each such account a security risk for data breaches and a potential for leaking my private information. Maintaining each account, having separate passwords, dealing with burdensome and intentionally difficult cancellations are all major headaches. I don't want Google and the likes to become more powerful either, but some kind of consolidated access to all such information might be a better approach for the news consumer. Perhaps some kind of pay per "article" model might work better. I would have been more willing to pay something like 25 cents per article if there was a universal access model. I suprise myself saying this, but AOL model was probably a more consumer friendly approach...