[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.

[s1artibartfast]

I think "You wouldn't steal a car" is a reasonable comparison.

In both situations you're taking something without the consent of the owner

[tsuujin]

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

[s1artibartfast]

No, but it decided what goods it will sell and what it won't.

If the pizza place only offered monthly subscriptions, do you think that would make it ethical to steal a slice?

Not liking the price or product offered isn't a moral justification for stealing it.

[tsuujin]

The problem with subscriptions is that you don’t have unlimited means, which means you can only afford a certain number of subscriptions. A subscription is always more than the cost of a single purchase, so by forcing you to subscribe the company is coercing you into also choosing them for the next purchase as well.

Yeah, you can go to another pizza place to get the pepperoni that you want, but you have already subscribed to the first place and it is a nontrivial decision to not utilize the subscription you already have. Plus the new place will require you to subscribe and now you’re paying far more than the two slices would have actually cost you if you were allowed to buy by the slice.

If you want to talk ethics, pursuing exclusively a business model that is anticompetitive via a reduction in consumer choice per transaction is on the wrong side of that line. I don’t fault people for opportunistically avoiding the paywall.

[fortran77]

You can go to a newsstand and by a NY Times.

[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.