Comment by greenyoda
3 years ago
Most of the paywalled sites posted to HN have simple workarounds, such as disabling cookies and/or JavaScript with a browser extension (works for NY Times, Washington Post, etc.), or submitting the URL to a site such as archive.is (even works for the WSJ).
Here's what the HN FAQ[1] says about paywalls:
> Are paywalls ok?
> It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds.
> In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic. More here.[2]
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=paywalls%20by:dang&dateRange=a...
Thank you. Exact what I wanted to know. One does not invest much time into trying to trick the website and just switch the window to Google.
Now I'll first try to get past the paywall :)
Aren't the "workarounds" just piracy? It's odd to me that hackernews encourages that.
I don't know if this is actually a good argument, but the way I view it is they're willing to give out the content for free to many sources, but then restrict it fairly arbitrarily. For example I'll often get paywalled based on the specific device or browser I'm using, which is basically just nonsense in my view. If they're giving the content away for free to archive.is, google caches, etc. I don't really feel bad looking at one of the places they willing give it away to. They could actually paywall the content fully, and some sites do this like the Financial Times. For those, I just don't read their paywalled articles and move on with my life, but for the sites that do give the content away for free sometimes I don't really have a problem. I also do subscribe to some sites that I find particularly valuable where I want to read the truly paywalled content. I think it would be more like piracy if they actually restricted the content and someone who paid for it was re-sharing it. Curious to hear alternative views as well though, as I said I don't actually know if this is a reasonable argument.
Having the preference to not run javascript on the web does not mean that you're committing piracy against Foo when you ask Foo for content and they give it to you. That's just Foo paywalling some but not all legit forms of access.
Some paywalls are complete enough such that they don't give you the content with any legit request.
I don't think those sites with incomplete paywalls are because of oversight. There's probably interest in keeping some access open so the content can spread interest and be shared in hubs like HN.