Personally, I'm just there to see what makes the link on HN so interesting. I don't seek out articles on paywalled sites directly. When I stumble into a paywall, I just close the tab and look at other headlines on HN.
Do you work for free? Do you pirate your software?
There are so many other free outlets of information. But quality journalism (although admittedly not always perfect) has its price.
What makes linking to paywalls unacceptable is that links are not marked with a "paywall" tag of some sort. So it ends up being bait and switch and a waste of time.
Regarding subscriptions: I'm just not going to separately subscribe to three dozen news sources I regularly read, I'm sorry.
“Quality journalism” has its price, and the market doesn’t want to pay for it.
Quality software has its price too, but the market prefers Linux. Wait, are you associating “free” with “low quality” or am I? Who can tell with quality these days. One thing’s for sure, it’s a difficult issue.
[1] The text equivalent of Charlie Brooker's "How to report the news" segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI
There should be no distinction who's looking, with the only exception being paying vs. non-paying clients.
Yes to both of your other questions.
I don't consider paywalling quality journalistic content socially unacceptable. I consider dropping a link on a free discussion board to a site with a paywall to be beyond obnoxious (but not quite to 'unacceptable.')
I often work for free, but not always. I often pirate software, but not always. I pirate software when I can't get a trial; I've seldom found reason to continue using pirated software and thus don't pay for it. Software with trials (much like paywalled sites with a limited number of free articles each month) let me sample without cost and are indeed more likely to get me to pay.
As I said, I don't seek out paywalled content- I'm not visiting the NYT daily trying to find a way around the paywall so I don't have to pay. I don't subscribe and pay for these things because it's not a part of my life. I get news and opinions and entertainment from other sources, only as sporadically as my curiosity piques, and usually because it's in some public place (TV on in the lobby, newspaper on the security desk, etc.)
Quality journalism does have its price. As does poor quality journalism - they paywall both. But I can't be bothered to throw money at them so that I can learn who actually provides quality content ... because it's not a part of my life, nor do I want it to be. See sibling comments on content quality.