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Ask HN: Can we stop linking to subscriber only content?

20 pointszombio12y ago16 comments

Why is it that submitting content that requires a Google or Facebook sign in is so frowned upon, but linking to subscriber only content is perfectly acceptable. The most common case of this is The New York Times, as seen in this link that is currently number 10 on the front page.

Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/gxR2Ma6.png

Thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6111352

16 comments

11 comments · 4 top-level

t012y ago· 3 in thread

You're probably the only one to visit the New York Times 10 times. I'm still at zero.

johnward12y ago

The pay wall only appears after 10 views? I was so confused because I never see the paywall and I see people complain.

BruceIV12y ago

If they haven't changed their policies lately you get a certain number of free articles daily as well (five, I think, but they might have removed that).

chris2412y ago

10 articles per month, yeah.

danso12y ago· 3 in thread

This is your question:

> Why is it that submitting content that requires a Google or Facebook sign in is so frowned upon

A New York Times article does not require a sign-in. The article in question is not subscriber only-content. You do not need to sign-in nor be a subscriber to read this article.

The NYT allows 10 articles a month to be read for free. So your question should be phrased as: "Why does HN allow links to sites on which I have exceeded the amount of free content that I am personally allocated?"

But you don't even need to go that far. You can turn off the JavaScript in your browser, which, for many of FB-login type websites, would not work.

zombioOP12y ago

> A New York Times article does not require a sign-in. The article in question is not subscriber only-content. You do not need to sign-in nor be a subscriber to read this article.

> "To see the full article, subscribe here." ... "To continue reading, subscribe for just 99c for your first 4 weeks"

I'm baffled as to how you can say "YOU do not need to sign-in nor be a subscriber to read this article" when my screenshot clearly shows the exact opposite is true. Whether some people have or have not exceeded their 10 free articles this month does not change the fact that yes, this IS subscriber only content and I DO need to pay and sign in to see it (assuming I don't take the time to hack around it).

> But you don't even need to go that far. You can turn off the JavaScript in your browser

I don't know what you think that would accomplish.

paranoiacblack12y ago

To summarize this for you OP: no, fuck you, do it yourself.

#HN

gruseom12y ago

I've noticed a pattern. People who sneer at HN—of whom there are more than a few, it's quite a thing now—always think it's other people who are the assholes.

To reply to zombio: it's probably that NYT and WaPo are such major publications that a site that wants to link to the best content can't very well exclude them. I agree it's annoying. What I do is visit the URLs in an incognito browser window.

ivank12y ago· 1 in thread

Firefox and Chrome have a cookie whitelisting feature. You can let non-whitelisted sites set whatever cookies they want, but have them cleared on browser exit.

notahacker12y ago

There's also the ability to open a URL in a new private window. I suspect circumvention of cookie-based blocking is the second most used reason for "private browsing" after looking at porn.

meadhikari12y ago

For New York Times articles, I have started to use viewtext. It works everytime and I just get the text

http://viewtext.org/api/text?url=<nytimesurl>

Edit: How about all New York Times articles get redirected through the viewtext route? Or would that be just too much

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