I'd imagine that most people in HN live in a locale where you can get access for free. It's a pretty common service from public libraries, although you have to periodically re-request access. I'd imagine that most people who read without paying for a subscription are just using some combination of ublock/umatrix/clearing cookies
You can avoid the NYT paywall by literally just hitting the Stop button in Chrome after the page has displayed but the paywall JS is still loading/rendering. It works 100% of the time for me.