Thoughts on linking to paywalled sites?

Hexorg, 11 months ago

On one hand I’m glad journalism is switching to paid website model, on the other hand - I just wish there was a better way of sharing paywalled content. It’s extra frustrating when it’s an article I enjoy reading and they let me read the first two paragraphs without any warning that it’s paywalled and they throw in 5 pages-long ad in between then suddenly BAM paywall. I’d much rather just have a “pay to see this” banner first or something.

I really like Ars Technica's model(and that’s why I’m subscribed) where if you subscribe you get no ads and some benefits like RSS feed to full articles.

This being said, I don’t think it’s your responsibility to warn us about paywalls.

luna, 11 months ago

This being said, I don’t think it’s your responsibility to warn us about paywalls.

Why? I want to be notified if I won't be able to engage with a post. The entire point of sharing things is to start a discussion, and if I can't do that because something is paywalled, what's the point?

alex, 1 year ago

I think it's good etiquette. I also think that as you said:

I find it frustrating, personally–but only if I’m not currently paying for the material, because if I am then I’m logged in and likely won’t notice.

I never share a paywalled article on purpose, but since I don't notice if it's paywalled for my premium subscriptions, I often get it wrong. I'd really rather see a Lemmy-side automated flag rather than users having to check themselves every time they share (and often failing, because they're humans).

cosmicsploogedrizzle, 1 year ago

You can just feed any paywalled site through archive.is to remove it.

LSNLDN, 1 year ago

Another one I found recently is 12ft.io

cosmicsploogedrizzle, 1 year ago

Nice! I havent heard of this one. I'll have to install this on my partner's phone. They have an iPhone (I have android). I usually just use the webarchives addon for Firefox mobile to open links in archive.is

buxtonwater, 11 months ago

I've found 12ft.io to be largely useless in my experience, it doesn't do a shit ton of major outlets because they complained to the website and so it doesn't seem to work

luna, 1 year ago

That's not true. For example, if I need to log in and pay to see the content at all, archive.is won't help.

MBM, 11 months ago

Morally that does feel a bit weird, because they need to get money from somewhere to do proper journalism

jherazob, 1 year ago

Works only for soft paywalls, like these "read 15 articles for free" ones, if it's a hard paywall like stuff behind a Patreon or something it doesn't help

Exaggeration207, 1 year ago

It would be nice to have an option to flag something as "paywall" or "limited paywall" in the UI when creating a post. But I also don't want to clutter up the UI too much, and I don't know if enough users would use the feature to justify adding it.

If it were possible to add flair to posts, that might be a good way of doing it, and meet other user requests related to flair. Not sure how easy it is to add that, but I would definitely use that feature if it were available.

Barbarian, 1 year ago

I don't think it's likely to have a UI element, devs are slammed enough as it is and there aren't enough new contributors stepping up (I'm trying, I really am, I just don't know Rust, Psql or Typescript enough).

Much better for there to be a community ruling about it which Beehaw members & contributors abide by

luna, 1 year ago

Fortunately, I do know Rust and Postgres, so this may be something I look at. I've got some other stuff that's earlier in the queue, though.

That said, don't feel bad! These are big, complicated technologies and they take time to learn. I just did my first bit of Rust mentoring at work and it is definitely a challenge, even for experienced devs.

GuyDudeman, 1 year ago

I feel like that’s a great etiquette regardless.