3 ms·

If it makes you feel better, I feel that both extensions are wrong. If you enjoy reading the WSJ, you should pay for it. They do some really great business repo

by eli 12y ago

If it makes you feel better, I feel that both extensions are wrong. If you enjoy reading the WSJ, you should pay for it. They do some really great business reporting and it's not that expensive.

maratd 12y ago
> I feel that both extensions are wrong. I feel that discriminating based on referrer is wrong. Or IP address. Or geographic location. Or user agent. More than that, discriminating based on those things is really flimsy. A website should provide the same content regardless of what browser you're using or where you're coming from.
- eli 12y ago
  I'm not saying I think the WSJ's paywall is a good idea (I don't), but if they want to try to make money to support their (largely very good) journalism that way, I don't think it's very nice for someone else to publish a tool that automatically subverts the paywall for countless other users.
  - bdcravens 12y ago
    This tool saves the 3 seconds it takes to highlight the article title, 'Search Google for ...', and click the link in the search results.
    - eli 12y ago
      I don't follow. Would using the plugin be less acceptable if the paywall were harder to get around?
      - esrauch 12y ago
        Yes, definitely.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - maratd 12y ago
        > Would using the plugin be less acceptable if the paywall were harder to get around? I don't see the plugin as getting around their paywall. I see it as getting around moronic web development. For example, if a site has unbelievably intrusive advertising and I install an ad blocker. Or a site pops up a register for our newsletter modal and it's blocking the content and there's no way to close it ... so I open up the console and remove the dom node entirely so I can see the article. In other words, stupid shit that 99.9% of people don't know how to get around, but a web developer can get around in a few seconds. That's not hacking or bypassing anything, that's just moronic web development. If you want to put up a paywall, that's fine. A wall is a wall. If you make a hole in the wall on purpose and people walk through that hole, don't blame the people ... blame the wall.
- ikeboy 12y ago
  Or how much you're paying?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
guelo 12y ago
Fine you can have a paywall but then you won't get the free organic traffic from Google. WSJ tries to have it both ways.
- eli 12y ago
  I guess I just disagree. Right now if WSJ comes up in your google results, the link works and you can read the article. If link didn't work and paywall appeared instead of the article, that would be a problem (which is why Google outlawed it). Would you prefer it instead if WSJ.com just removed themselves from Google? And applied the paywall to everyone? I don't see how that's better. Or is the complaint that any paywall exists anywhere?
  - bdcravens 12y ago
    If you discover content via Google, you can see it. If you discover content via HN, you can't. Anyone who believes this is ok is pretty much saying they are opposed to net neutrality.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      This has nothing to do with net neutrality. While it may be an important issue, conflating it with net neutrality is unhelpful.
      - bdcravens 12y ago
        Traffic flowing through one discovery channel is free, but traffic flowing through another isn't. While technically separate from net neutrality as it's happening in a different place in the networking stack, it's the same principle: if it flows over the network, it should be equal.
        dragonwriter 12y ago
        > Traffic flowing through one discovery channel is free, but traffic flowing through another isn't. That really misrepresents the case. Its not a difference in traffic costs, its a difference in whether the edge provider is willing to send its content over the network to you. And they are willing to do so if you are paying them directly, or you are sent by someone who is paying them with a certain quantity of exposure. While you could probably formulate a single principle that would support both what you are calling for here and net neutrality, it probably would be a controversial principle even among people who support net neutrality, and wouldn't represent what many people who do support net neutrality support. Claiming that if someone doesn't agree with you on this they must oppose net neutrality is simply wrong, and unhelpful to either your cause of net neutrality.
PhantomGremlin 12y ago
> it's not that expensive It's actually free. At least the first paragraph or so is. And a lot of the personal finance articles are totally free. About 99% of the time that's good enough for me. So I don't bypass the paywall. I go to WSJ on a daily basis and simply read the free intro text. I enjoy the WSJ enough that I would gladly pay them, except they play the usual pricing games, which I detest. I wish they just gave me their "best" price, and never tried to jack up that price to whatever they thought they could get away with at renewal. On a few occasions I've had a 1 year subscription for IIRC perhaps $99 but at renewal they tried to jack up the price substantially. They've been playing these pricing games on and off for at least 10 years, if not longer. I have been willing to pay them at least $1,000 over that time. Instead they've gotten at most $200. But they're not alone in this. Most newspapers and magazines follow that pricing model. OTOH the NY Times is great. I always clear cookies and browse w/o Javascript and I can read all the articles for free. This is a deliberate decision on their part. Still, I probably don't spend more than a few minutes a day on their site, so it's not like they could get $100/yr from me. For a while, the NY Times was hilariously free. News articles were free, while they charged for their "editorial" content. That was perhaps a good idea for their core NYC demographic, but for other people (like me) the opposite would have been more attractive. How much would it cost me to keep from ever even seeing a headline for anything written by Maureen Dowd? Alas, that pricing model has long since changed.

by eli 12y ago

If it makes you feel better, I feel that both extensions are wrong. If you enjoy reading the WSJ, you should pay for it. They do some really great business reporting and it's not that expensive.

maratd 12y ago

> I feel that both extensions are wrong. I feel that discriminating based on referrer is wrong. Or IP address. Or geographic location. Or user agent. More than that, discriminating based on those things is really flimsy. A website should provide the same content regardless of what browser you're using or where you're coming from.

eli 12y ago
I'm not saying I think the WSJ's paywall is a good idea (I don't), but if they want to try to make money to support their (largely very good) journalism that way, I don't think it's very nice for someone else to publish a tool that automatically subverts the paywall for countless other users.
- bdcravens 12y ago
  This tool saves the 3 seconds it takes to highlight the article title, 'Search Google for ...', and click the link in the search results.
  - eli 12y ago
    I don't follow. Would using the plugin be less acceptable if the paywall were harder to get around?
    - esrauch 12y ago
      Yes, definitely.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
    - maratd 12y ago
      > Would using the plugin be less acceptable if the paywall were harder to get around? I don't see the plugin as getting around their paywall. I see it as getting around moronic web development. For example, if a site has unbelievably intrusive advertising and I install an ad blocker. Or a site pops up a register for our newsletter modal and it's blocking the content and there's no way to close it ... so I open up the console and remove the dom node entirely so I can see the article. In other words, stupid shit that 99.9% of people don't know how to get around, but a web developer can get around in a few seconds. That's not hacking or bypassing anything, that's just moronic web development. If you want to put up a paywall, that's fine. A wall is a wall. If you make a hole in the wall on purpose and people walk through that hole, don't blame the people ... blame the wall.
ikeboy 12y ago
Or how much you're paying?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

guelo 12y ago

Fine you can have a paywall but then you won't get the free organic traffic from Google. WSJ tries to have it both ways.

eli 12y ago
I guess I just disagree. Right now if WSJ comes up in your google results, the link works and you can read the article. If link didn't work and paywall appeared instead of the article, that would be a problem (which is why Google outlawed it). Would you prefer it instead if WSJ.com just removed themselves from Google? And applied the paywall to everyone? I don't see how that's better. Or is the complaint that any paywall exists anywhere?
- bdcravens 12y ago
  If you discover content via Google, you can see it. If you discover content via HN, you can't. Anyone who believes this is ok is pretty much saying they are opposed to net neutrality.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    This has nothing to do with net neutrality. While it may be an important issue, conflating it with net neutrality is unhelpful.
    - bdcravens 12y ago
      Traffic flowing through one discovery channel is free, but traffic flowing through another isn't. While technically separate from net neutrality as it's happening in a different place in the networking stack, it's the same principle: if it flows over the network, it should be equal.
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        > Traffic flowing through one discovery channel is free, but traffic flowing through another isn't. That really misrepresents the case. Its not a difference in traffic costs, its a difference in whether the edge provider is willing to send its content over the network to you. And they are willing to do so if you are paying them directly, or you are sent by someone who is paying them with a certain quantity of exposure. While you could probably formulate a single principle that would support both what you are calling for here and net neutrality, it probably would be a controversial principle even among people who support net neutrality, and wouldn't represent what many people who do support net neutrality support. Claiming that if someone doesn't agree with you on this they must oppose net neutrality is simply wrong, and unhelpful to either your cause of net neutrality.

PhantomGremlin 12y ago

> it's not that expensive It's actually free. At least the first paragraph or so is. And a lot of the personal finance articles are totally free. About 99% of the time that's good enough for me. So I don't bypass the paywall. I go to WSJ on a daily basis and simply read the free intro text. I enjoy the WSJ enough that I would gladly pay them, except they play the usual pricing games, which I detest. I wish they just gave me their "best" price, and never tried to jack up that price to whatever they thought they could get away with at renewal. On a few occasions I've had a 1 year subscription for IIRC perhaps $99 but at renewal they tried to jack up the price substantially. They've been playing these pricing games on and off for at least 10 years, if not longer. I have been willing to pay them at least $1,000 over that time. Instead they've gotten at most $200. But they're not alone in this. Most newspapers and magazines follow that pricing model. OTOH the NY Times is great. I always clear cookies and browse w/o Javascript and I can read all the articles for free. This is a deliberate decision on their part. Still, I probably don't spend more than a few minutes a day on their site, so it's not like they could get $100/yr from me. For a while, the NY Times was hilariously free. News articles were free, while they charged for their "editorial" content. That was perhaps a good idea for their core NYC demographic, but for other people (like me) the opposite would have been more attractive. How much would it cost me to keep from ever even seeing a headline for anything written by Maureen Dowd? Alas, that pricing model has long since changed.