19 votes

Topic deleted by author

11 comments

  1. [3]
    MetArtScroll
    Link
    This is the main problem I have with paywalls (emphasis mine): From the steps the author suggests, the following are extremely relevant to Tildes: preferentially link non-paywalled sites inform...

    This is the main problem I have with paywalls (emphasis mine):

    Newspapers publish articles – factual and opinionated – intending them to enter the public square as a topic of discussion. But if the discussions in the public square have an entry fee, the public square becomes smaller and less diverse.

    From the steps the author suggests, the following are extremely relevant to Tildes:

    • preferentially link non-paywalled sites
    • inform users that the link is paywalled (e.g. via Tildes tags)
    7 votes
    1. babypuncher
      Link Parent
      The idea that print news media shouldn't have an entry fee is a very new one. Prior to the internet, people got it in the form of newspapers and magazines which charged a subscription fee....

      The idea that print news media shouldn't have an entry fee is a very new one. Prior to the internet, people got it in the form of newspapers and magazines which charged a subscription fee. Articles published in local and national newspapers were still topics of discussion within the "public square".

      My issue with the idea that most online news sources should be free is that it shifts the status of "customer" from the reader to the advertisers. I think this is actively detrimental to the quality of news provided. The bias of a given news source ends up reflecting that of whoever is financing it.

      There is also the fact that investigative journalism is very expensive, and ads don't make a lot of money. This leads to less investment in investigative journalism and more in low risk content.

      I consistently see posted on Reddit low quality second hand sources that ultimately cite a much higher quality primary article published by the Washington Post or the New York Times.

      I think posting high quality primary sources should be encouraged, even if they are behind a paywall. Because this can be problematic for users who do not subscribe to the given source, posters could provide a summary (or alternative non-paywalled article) in the description.

      With the popularity of ad-blocking in this community and the strong dislike of pay news sources, I'm curious how most Tildes users expect good journalism to be funded going forward.

      5 votes
    2. elcuello
      Link Parent
      It's pretty simple for me on this site. Paywall = no participation.

      It's pretty simple for me on this site. Paywall = no participation.

      1 vote
  2. [2]
    Luna
    Link
    This is ultimately why I stopped clicking on a lot of articles. Some websites I know have no paywall and I'll open most of the time, others I am really unsure about. Some websites only mark off an...

    Third, newspapers make it hard to guess whether you will encounter a paywall or not. Some of them raise a paywall on some kinds of articles but not others. Some of them raise a paywall if you’re linked in from social media, but not if you’re linked in from Google (or vice versa). Some of them raise a paywall if it’s your Xth article per month on a certain computer, but not before.

    This is ultimately why I stopped clicking on a lot of articles. Some websites I know have no paywall and I'll open most of the time, others I am really unsure about. Some websites only mark off an article as read when you scroll down, but they might have a giant image at the top of the article so you cannot even decide if you want to read it without scrolling (especially on mobile), others will only mark it as read when you actually scroll a decent way down (I've only seen this a couple times), while others instantly mark it as read, even if you immediately leave, or will use up another free article every time you refresh the page. I used to just open articles in incognito mode, but many sites check for that and depend on JS so you cannot work around it by disabling it anymore. My strategy for NYT is to disable JS and only enable it after deciding I want to read more than just the first paragraph, but that doesn't work on all sites.

    I remember yelling at people for not reading articles before commenting on reddit in the past, but now I don't blame them. You never know when an article will be a waste of time and end up using one of your X free articles per month.

    5 votes
    1. Omnicrola
      Link Parent
      I enjoy the mobile DuckDuckGo browser for this reason. Used all my articles for the month? Nuke all history and data There are a few sites that have started doing incognito detection, which pick...

      I enjoy the mobile DuckDuckGo browser for this reason. Used all my articles for the month? Nuke all history and data

      There are a few sites that have started doing incognito detection, which pick up on DDG's privacy settings as if it where incognito, and they can go fuck themselves.

  3. [5]
    mrbig
    Link
    There were talks about tagging paywalled content here, but AFAIK it didn’t catch on.

    There were talks about tagging paywalled content here, but AFAIK it didn’t catch on.

    3 votes
    1. [4]
      cfabbro
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      @mycketforvirrad, @algernon_asimov and myself (probably others as well, I just haven't noticed them in the topic logs) have been tagging paywalled sites/articles whenever we notice them, and have...

      @mycketforvirrad, @algernon_asimov and myself (probably others as well, I just haven't noticed them in the topic logs) have been tagging paywalled sites/articles whenever we notice them, and have been doing that for quite some time now: https://tildes.net/?tag=paywall

      It would be nice if it could be automated somehow at some point though, esp since a lot of paywalls are soft ones, which are hard to detect as an individual user since they don't trigger until X visits to the site per day/week/month.

      7 votes
      1. [2]
        super_james
        Link Parent
        Ooh and it's possible to filter on tags now! Awesome.

        Ooh and it's possible to filter on tags now! Awesome.

        2 votes
        1. Algernon_Asimov
          (edited )
          Link Parent
          Filtering on tags has been around for a long time: You can now define topic tag filters, which will hide topics with certain tags by default in your listings. Almost forever, in Tildes terms. It's...
          2 votes
      2. mrbig
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        I hadn’t noticed it, sorry.

        I hadn’t noticed it, sorry.

        1 vote
  4. joplin
    Link
    I find it ironic that they complain about having to read 9 paragraphs of unrelated stuff to get to the one sentence that satisfies their curiosity, only to spend 9 paragraphs talking about a...

    I find it ironic that they complain about having to read 9 paragraphs of unrelated stuff to get to the one sentence that satisfies their curiosity, only to spend 9 paragraphs talking about a non-paywalled article before getting to their actual point about paywalls. WTF?

    2 votes