Fair enough, but there are valid reasons to object to paywalled content being posted to a news aggregator like HN other than wanting everything free. Content not available for everyone to read leads to low quality conversations dominated by complaints about the paywall. Unfortunately, people still complain even when there is a workaround. Showing partial content then asking for payment to read the rest seems like a dishonest tactic, and it kind of is.
If people don't want to pay for anything on principle, then there's not much sites can do about that either. Paywalls are a better option than advertising but sites are still probably going to lose a lot of revenue either way.
> Showing partial content then asking for payment to read the rest seems like a dishonest tactic, and it kind of is.
How is that dishonest? The alternative would be far worse (demanding payment without a preview of what you're paying for).
The problem with posting paywalled content isn't posting paywalled content. It's the entitled people who can't even be bothered to use well-known workarounds and instead completely derail discussions on political grounds.
>The alternative would be far worse (demanding payment without a preview of what you're paying for).
"dishonest" may be too strong, perhaps just misleading - paywalled articles are often designed to appear as free articles. With a proper preview the reader would know as soon as they arrive that they will be expected to pay to read. I understand why sites prefer to hook you with partial content first, but that practice can appear deceptive.
>The problem with posting paywalled content isn't posting paywalled content. It's the entitled people who can't even be bothered to use well-known workarounds and instead completely derail discussions on political grounds.
I agree with you there - no one can post content from Wired anymore without someone starting a thread about the paywall. If you're not willing to read the article you should just not participate in the discussion about it.
If people don't want to pay for anything on principle, then there's not much sites can do about that either. Paywalls are a better option than advertising but sites are still probably going to lose a lot of revenue either way.