• A large fraction of the comments on many (maybe even most) stories here are discussing points that are not actually from the submitted story. They are on poin

• A large fraction of the comments on many (maybe even most) stories here are discussing points that are not actually from the submitted story. They are on points that arose in the comments. Those points may have been originally mentioned in the comments in response to something in the story but take on a life of their own. There is generally no need to have read the story to understand and participate intelligently in those subthreads. • Usually enough of the commenters who did read the story quote enough of it in their comments that even on those subthreads that have not veered off on some interesting tangent inspired by not covered in the story you can often follow and even meaningfully contribute. • For submissions that are covering news items there will usually be other sources covering it too. They may not be as thorough as the submitted paywalled site, but usually a quick search with your favorite search engine will turn up enough to let you follow and participate even in those subthreads where no one is quoting enough of the submissions. • For submissions that are not covering news items and so might not have any other good sources and where no interesting tangents have developed in the comments and no one is quoting enough to help, you can still often tell from the comments whether or not the story is something that interests you. That knowledge can be useful even if you cannot find a free way to access it now. • If none of the above apply to you it's easy to look at the domain and skip submissions from sites you recognize as having paywalls. It's almost trivial to write a bookmarklet to do that for you if you want to make it even easier.