[karaterobot]

It is slightly annoying to click the link, get stuck behind the paywall, then have to return to HN, go into the comments thread, and find the archive.is if it exists, and then make it yourself if it doesn't. It'd be nice if the OP could submit a non-paywalled link alongside the original one. I assume HN feels like that would be crossing a legal or ethical line though.

[zer8k]

If it makes you feel any better your click -> see paywall -> leave likely counts as a bounce. But I agree, archive links should be default. My strategy is to just immediately pass any major news outlet article through an archive service because they legitimately do not deserve my money or my eyes.

[bee_rider]

I’d be shocked it having it in a comment vs the article link makes a legal difference, and it seems like an odd ethical one.

[dredmorbius]

FWIW, I've been making a point of submitting paywall/archive links along with my own submissions for a few years now. I'd encourage that practice as well.

<https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=2&prefix=true&que...>

[disantlor]

more annoying than paying for journalism?

[tsuujin]

The problem with paying is that there are an unreasonable number of publications out there to subscribe to. It would cost an absolute fortune to support every journalist for every article out there. Given HN is a link aggregator you have to assume that most publishers are going to be represented here.

If there were a quick and easy way to pay a reasonably small fee per article (similar to what we used to do with newspapers) then your unnecessarily condescending comment may have some merit.

[tekla]

Well that's going to be something that people are going to have to figure out morally isn't it.

On one hand, yell about the death of good/independent journalism, on the other never ever pay for any of it.

[tsuujin]

> …on the other never ever pay for any of it.

How do you know that the parent comment here doesn’t ever pay for journalism? For all you know they pay for literally every publisher out there except for this particular one.

I pay for some journalism, but I reader mode others. Things rarely exist at the polar extremes. Usually my willingness to pay depends on the value proposition, if they’re asking me to pay for a lot of content I have no interest in I’m not likely to subscribe.

Perhaps it’s less a moral question for the consumer and more a logistical question for publishers to make it viable to pay for only the content we actually consume.

[s1artibartfast]

It all comes down to motivated thinking and rationalization.

The pizza place doesn't sell peperoni I want à la carte, so I steal them. This is OK because I sometimes pay for food elsewhere.

[omgmajk]

This is as bad of an argument as "You wouldn't steal a car" regarding piracy of media. Stealing a physical thing is never the same as obtaining a digital copy of something.

[tsuujin]

The pizza place doesn’t require you to sign up for a monthly pizza subscription to get a single slice.

[fortran77]

This was an interesting, relevent article in the leading newspaper in the U.S. Many peope subscribe, and if it's important enough, you can go to the Library to read it.

Are you saying that relevent articles in major newspapers, like the WSJ, NYTimes, or WaPo shouldn't be discussed here, and only things on "free" sites like BuzzFeed, and PerezHilton are good?

[tsuujin]

No? Where did I say that? I just don’t blame people for bypassing that paywall.

[dredmorbius]

As of 21 June 2023, there were 52,642 distinct sites (as defined by HN) which have made just the front page (30 items/day). That's roughly 3% of all submitted posts, which would be a rather larger site tally.

How many of those 52,642 sites do you suggest HN members subscribe to?

If we restrict that to only the sites with 100+ front-page submissions, that number falls to 149.

Of the sites I've identified as "general news" (all sites w/ >= 17 appearances, plus a few others), that list is 146.

Specifically: nytimes.com, bbc.com, bbc.co.uk, theguardian.com, washingtonpost.com, reuters.com, npr.org, cnn.com, slate.com, vice.com, latimes.com, cnet.com, yahoo.com, sfgate.com, cbc.ca, cnbc.com, guardian.co.uk, bits.blogs.nytimes.com, vox.com, salon.com, time.com, nymag.com, telegraph.co.uk, boston.com, newsweek.com, chronicle.com, msn.com, axios.com, news.com.com, propublica.org, independent.co.uk, timesonline.co.uk, mercurynews.com, theglobeandmail.com, pbs.org, theintercept.com, usatoday.com, buzzfeednews.com, spiegel.de, rollingstone.com, thestandard.com, go.com, smh.com.au, cbsnews.com, abc.net.au, nbcnews.com, seattletimes.com, aljazeera.com, bloombergview.com, motherjones.com, firstlook.org, thehill.com, apnews.com, informationweek.com, news.com, thedailybeast.com, huffingtonpost.com, theage.com.au, csmonitor.com, nwsource.com, japantimes.co.jp, thestar.com, bostonglobe.com, dw.com, indiatimes.com, nypost.com, ap.org, chicagotribune.com, sfchronicle.com, dailymail.co.uk, news.com.au, foxnews.com, kqed.org, theatlanticwire.com, scmp.com, texasmonthly.com, wbur.org, yahoo.net, swissinfo.ch, nationalpost.com, spectator.co.uk, sfweekly.com, detroitnews.com, theweek.com, nzherald.co.nz, washingtonexaminer.com, aljazeera.net, cbslocal.com, nltimes.nl, weeklystandard.com, ctvnews.ca, miamiherald.com, nydailynews.com, thetimes.co.uk, dallasnews.com, startribune.com, bostonherald.com, euronews.com, kuow.org, themorningnews.org, upi.com, globalnews.ca, guardiannews.com, theherald.com.au, thesun.co.uk, belfasttelegraph.co.uk, houstonchronicle.com, ibtimes.co.uk, koreaherald.com, metro.co.uk, mirror.co.uk, seattleweekly.com, standard.co.uk, dailyherald.com, huffingtonpost.co.uk, huffingtonpost.com.au, huffpost.com, inquirer.com, ktvu.com, ocweekly.com, sundayherald.com, theweek.co.uk, wpri.com, wtsp.com, americanchronicle.com, annarborchronicle.com, augustachronicle.com, catholicherald.co.uk, dukechronicle.com, heraldsun.com.au, katu.com, kdvr.com, kfor.com, ktla.com, myfox8.com, myfoxdc.com, myfoxny.com, news-herald.com, news.google.ca, pressherald.com, thechronicleherald.ca, timesherald.com, wttw.com, wtvr.com, wunc.org, wvgazette.com.

Those constitute 8.47% of all HN front-page posts.

I would suggest that expecting the 600k+ active HN participants, let alone the 5 million or so total monthly users, to individually subscribe to more than a very small handful of such sites is entirely unrealistic.

(Sources: archive of HN front pages I've been studying for the past few months, as mentioned multiple times in recent HN comments, and a Whaly.io study from 2022 for overall member tallies: <https://whaly.io/posts/hacker-news-2021-retrospective>. Monthly users per dang about two months ago: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36146958>.)