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Comment by booleandilemma | Hacker News Reader

Or we could actually support journalists so we don’t end up in a dystopia where we have to get all our news from BuzzFeed and Mashable.

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There's a legit argument there, but it's tired and boring to rehearse this on every paywalled story, and that makes it off topic. HN's policy on paywalls has been the same for years. It's in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html and there's more explanation at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 and lots more at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18677791 and marked it off-topic.

News Corp ( WSJ's owner ) is one of the largest companies in the world. It's founder is one of the wealthiest men in the world. I don't think anyone at the WSJ is starving. Besides, if you want to support journalism, find and support independent journalists doing real journalism rather than mega corporations. If anyone needs support, it's the independent journalists.

It's not up to you to decide from whom you're allowed to steal content. You can't steal money from Bill Gates's wallet just because "you don't think he's starving," even if you plan to give that money to a needy charity.

Actually, only the law says I can't do that.

I take it you're not a fan of Robin Hood

Oh come on. When does circumventing of paywall become stealing?

Reading proprietary content behind a paywall for free isn't stealing? What else could it possibly be?

How about "circumventing" the ticket window at your local movie theater by walking in the exit door. I mean, they are showing the movie anyway, and there are empty seats...

Little bit late to answer, but it's a bit different situation with this exact paywall. It's movie theater that give everyone access for free, but randomly decide not to provide these access based on where you come from.

So using 3rd-party website to access their content is not any different that accessing the site through Facebook redirect for instance since in both cases you get content for free.

Buzzfeed has broken many major stories this year? It is wrong to conflate the Buzzfeed News of today with the Buzzfeed of yesteryear.

So how are we supposed to discuss content if we can’t read it? Are you saying it is compulsory to buy a WSJ subscription to use HN?

Murdoch you mean?

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