Comment by bitpush
7 hours ago
> They should sell their stuff by mail if they hate open culture so much.
Does open culture mean free? Are you willing to work for free? It is perfectly OK to sell goods in exchange for money, which is what NYT is doing.
I dont know why you're so upset with it. You cant walk into Apple Store and except to walk away with a free iPhone. Then why are you expecting to "walk" into nytimes' website and walk away with free article?
The problem isn't that a news site is monetizing with a paywall. Totally fine, monetize how you want!
The problem is that prominent news orgs have lobbied governments all over the world to threaten google, apple, etc. for preferential treatment so these paywalled articles get prominent placement in various feeds and carousels and recommendation algos.
As a small publisher you'll never get this same preferential treatment if you throw up a paywall.
Creating the bizarre situation where big tech platforms feel they have to recommend paywalled articles from NYT/Bloomberg/etc, catfishing users right into a paywall when they click on headlines. This is essentially spam.
Open means open. Plenty of people make money in the open culture in way less obnoxious ways than NYT. What NYT does is crapping at the place where I am, but building a wall and charging for passage to a place that does stink little bit less. I don't mind them having such place, or even charging for access. What I mind is making mine actively worse. Do whatever you want and charge however much you want. But for the love of God don't advertise in my face using free space that I inhabit. My attention costs way more than your content. Don't be surprised that when you do I will disregard completely your wishful thinking about payment.
What I need is one checkbox in Google ecosystem (and/or my browser) that says "Never show links to paywalled content". Give me that and all my beef with NYT and similar garbage factories is gone in a blink of an eye.