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Comment by officialchicken | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to add the usual paywall warning (complaint) - there are only 2 sentences visible to non-subscribers of the WSJ. Hopefully people will stop submitting these sooner rather than later... no, I don't want to google the link to read the article, when I should be able to just click on it.

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Sooo many people on HN despise ads (rant after rant about using adblockers) yet hate paywalled articles. How is it, exactly, do you want people to get paid for writing quality journalism? You can immediately see it's a WSJ url -- if you don't have an account because you don't value their writing then skip this post and move on.

It seems clear that a significant minority of HN simply objects to the idea that writing is a valuable and worthwhile economic activity. That's my only explanation for how they can oppose literally every viable method of monetizing content.

Anything with low-effort access will always connote little value in people's minds because endless alternatives exist. Anyone who wants to get paid for doing something hard should avoid channels like that, or only use them to float associated freebie products that can introduce people to the real product.

Maybe because we're writing comments and not getting paid anything :)

Given that officialchicken has a sense of entitlement so misplaced that even the minimal effort to work around the paywall is more than he feels he "should" provide, it's safe to say the guy is just an asshole and idiot. An asshole, because he expects something for nothing, and an idiot for thinking that attitude has any place in a sustainable ecosystem for solid news.

Harsh language, I know, but if assholes and idiots are the ones who determine what HN readers can and cannot post, it can only end badly for HN as a whole. After all, why would any intelligent person make time for a news board dominated by people who have nothing but contempt for the work of journalism?

  Sooo many people on HN despise ads (rant after rant about
  using adblockers) yet hate paywalled articles.

They aren't necessarily the same people.

I think their answer might be "VC money". Being profitable is not for cool unicorns.

As ad blocking increases, browser makers should add a type of "in web-page" payment system directly built into the browser. Paywalls are annoying because of friction. But imagine this instead:

  1) open page
  2) short preview and button "5 cents to read all"
  3) click button and browser opens built-in dialog similar to how appstore/play store in app purchase works.
  4) since its part of the browser, no concerns about trust or security.

This kind of frictionless and cheap paywall has the potential to replace ads. But browser makers must build it into the browser.

^^this, I would gladly micropay for numerous outlets , i don't want to have to manage multiple different subscriptions. In fact I would take it further and auto approve payment for my visit to avoid the click, set a limit of $n per source and/or $n total spend per month.

It's high quality unique journalism, I hope people don't stop submitting their links. If a story is available elsewhere then by all means, but a WSJ exclusive story is definitely worth linking to.

> Hopefully people will stop submitting these sooner rather than later...

I dearly hope that they don't. This is valuable content and we shouldn't penalize it just because you're too lazy to click a single additional time.

There's literally a "web" link you can click on HN to pre-populate the Google query for you. How can you possible object to that?

I have to assume you simply have an ideological opposition to writers being paid and thus oppose the inclusion of quality content on HN.

The web link apparently fails for a lot of these now.

I don't think it's unreasonable to be annoyed by links that require a subscription or payment to view.

I think a good compromise would be some sort of [Pay] tag on the link.

Edit - it's also hard to have an honest discussion about an article if you don't have a subscription to that site. That requires a bunch of extra work (getting the subscription) just to fairly participate in the discussion here.

Maybe that's fine, up to the HN community to decide.

None of the results on the first page of google contain more than the first few sentences of the article. I think I got the gist of the article from those two sentences, but it is kind of annoying to not have the details or nuance that I'm sure is present in the rest of the article.

Given the number of WSJ articles I've seen recently, I am getting suspicious that one of the following is happening:

1. A lot of HNers upvoting articles without reading them

2. HNers are getting past the paywall (illegally)

3. The WSJ staff is upvoting their own articles to get a page view boost (and thus a few more ad dollars)

Of course, there could just be more people on HN that pay for the WSJ than I thought.

> 2. HNers are getting past the paywall (illegally)

It's not illegal to bypass a paywall by Googling the article. They literally programmed the paywall to work that way. It's how I read (and upvoted) the article.

If Googling it doesn't let you get past the paywall, try incognito.

considering not one of the current 15 comments is about the content of the OP ....

You assume too much.

The web link when used to get around a paywall is an insult to the original design intent of hyperlinked media, the WWW, and HTML.

Heck, using the web link outright supports the idea of not paying them for their content. Very strange to recommend.

The google trick doesn't work anymore anyway. They got wise. Usually someone posts a pastebin with the content.

Works for me.. have you tried it in incognito mode?

I think they're using some kind of heuristic approach to identify people who use the google approach regularly and put a stop to it. I know sometimes when I click on a Journal article it will let me read it, sometimes it won't. It's a tricky tactic, I'd just totally ignore Journal links otherwise. But this way they get to bug me semi-regularly instead of not at all.

No, it's referer and cookie based.

I just tried it and it seemed to work for me.

which i find pretty sad. that hurts both the wsj, who would rather be paid for your reading their content, and the creative commons alternatives for your time and attention, because people here are now reading and discussing pirated wsj content rather than genuinely free-as-in-everything writing.

They use cookies now too, try Incognito mode (or whatever is similar in your preferred browser).

If you're using Chrome you could try this extension, https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bypass/ekfnpmbmfml.... It automatically sets the referer header and clears cookies on paywalled sites like wsj and ft.

http://archive.is/UKhER

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