Late addition:

I think my and dang's views are generally aligned. HN's prime directive is intellectual curiosity. A number of online trends, including paywalls, registration walls, and increasingly reader-hostile Web design, all go strongly against this.

HN guidelines request not discussing these as the discussions are boring. HN itself however has the capacity to respond to such trends by deprecating and banning such sites. In some cases it has done so (though generally you've got to ask to find out). In others, such as with the NY Times and its paywall, the response seems more an organic one of readers deciding that this isn't what they're going to tolerate.

I see this as going hand-in-hand with the current phase of copyright battles against both above-board sites such as the Internet Archive, and those which directly flout copyright to provide access to information to untold billions such as Sci-Hub, ZLibrary, Library Genesis, and Anna's Archive. I would very much like to see the latter succeed. The issue of how authors are to be compensated is often raised, to which I'll note:

- Many authors are dead, and have no interest in compensation. (Their estates or corporate owners of their catalogues may, however.)

- The overwhelming majority of authors aren't compensated for their works at all. That would include virtually anyone posting online. For the minuscule fraction who receive any compensation, the lion's share accrues to a minuscule fraction of those. Many authors write as part of another professional role (academics, researchers, politicians and bureaucrats, members of NGOs, or those simply writing about their other work and/or interests). The remaining minuscule fraction of a minuscule fraction of a minuscule fraction are engaged in a lottery, a game of musical chairs, and a highly random Fame Allocation Fairy who smiles on some whilst ignoring others. The smiles often come either late in life or after death (c.f., F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby, which gained its broad readership only after his death (1940) when distributed to US forces fighting abroad during WWII (1942--5). Uneven reward for genius is legion, as well as exploitation of authors (and songwriters and musicians and actors and screenwriters) by corporations.

- We're already paying tremendously for content, through advertising, a $700+ billion annual turnover enterprise, the bulk of which is supported by the roughly 1 billion inhabitants of wealthy nations, to the tune of $700 per person ($2,800 for a household of four). And yet advertising destroys and corrupts quality content, often ignoring it completely, whilst promoting utter dreck. I see a tax- or Internet-fees supported system as an attractive alternative, and this could provide the equivalent of all current subscription-media and book-purchase revenues at quite low rates, which I'd further suggest be based roughly on household income and/or wealth. The average works out to about $15/person per month, or $100 per year. Far less than the present advertising tax.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26893033>