[kazinator]

Stopping the page load halfway through defeats the NYT paywall, last I remember. Either that or switching to Firefox reader mode, or combination of both.

Edit: Just retested. Went to nytimes.com, clicked on a story, got the paywall. Turned on FF reader mode and reloaded. Blam, there is the whole article.

This is so very easy to do correctly in the back end, such that without an authenticated session from a paying user, the full content simply does not leave the server.

I think they are leaving it easily bypassable on purpose. They know that some "piracy" is beneficial, like it is in music. The paywall has to have finely tuneed "difficulty dial", such that they get revenue, without throttling the exposure (which will negatively act on the same revenue).

A "Fort Knox" paywall is probably not revenue-maximizing, that is to say.