To be fair, I don't actually know if the article has a paywall or not anymore since I started using Bypass Paywalls on Firefox.
this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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Unpopular Opinion
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This is not unpopular
Counterpoint: such articles should automatically be processed through https://archive.is when submitted and only accepted if successfully bypassed.
Sounds like a popular opinion
An even more unpopular opinion: we should pay for good journalism.
Where is the good journalism at? I’ll pay for it if it actually is good journalism.
I agree with that, but am also limited to being able to afford just a few news subscriptions. Assuming I'm not the exception, it just seems to be counterproductive towards generating discussion in a community for discussing news.
People who can only view a clickbait headline also end up not knowing the context of what others are discussing that may have paid for the subscription, and could further be counterproductive in generating meaningful discussion.
Maybe the community should tag paywalled articles, such that those posts can be wholly filtered by users not wanting to see them?
This is an interesting take. What about a summary bot that can post article contents, cleaned up, from behind the wall?
Or: a bot that would post a web archive link, instead, to preserve privacy? Some instances take a similar approach to YouTube links by having a bot post Piped links.
Which techniques are out there to avoid the paywall?
If you use the Ublock Origin Extension, you can paste in custom filter lists that block the loading of paywalls I use this one.
Archive.ph is my go-to 😁
👍👍
12ft.io is good.
This is also what I tend to use
👍👍
I use the Bypass Paywalls addon in Firefox. That takes care of a lot of sites. Switching to reader view in Firefox can also get around some paywalls. Archiving sites can also be used to get around some paywalls.
Thx for the info mate 👍👍
It's really not hard to get around them, and paywalls differ geographically.
Using archive / bypass links as the post links make things worse: they allow shitty tabloid headlines to carry the same weight as those from legitimate sources by obfuscating the source. As most people only read the headline, it should be obvious why that's worse.
I hadn't considered the second part, but couldn't bundling the source with the bypass solve that issue?
Being that news communities are there to facilitate discussion, it seems counterproductive to keep people from viewing the article in question. If someone just wanted to read the headlines and not have any discussion, an RSS feed would probably be better.
I always prefer the archive link in the post body. That way you have the benefit of it if you need it, and the source for the headline is prominently displayed close by.
With the archive link posted in the body, that's not really a paywall anymore. I do appreciate you doing that though!