[jszymborski]

The three articles I read from the NYT a year are not worth the price of a monthly subscription.

My choices are:

1) Use archive.ph to read the three articles.

2) Never read a NYT article again.

3) Pay for a subscription for the NYT.

I think you need to be approaching this from an exceptionally legalistic perspective to think that anything but Option 1 is reasonable. If I could pay the five cents of value those three articles are worth, I would, but I can't so I won't.

Standing at an empty intersection, I'm not going to start lecturing someone for looking both ways and crossing the street when the traffic light signals "Don't Walk".

I understand that you might feel that journalism is under funded and that this scofflaw, naredowell attitude is further jeopardizing it. The fact that the reasons newspapers are failing is complex and has less to do with consumer behaviour than it does with other factors not least of which are market consolidation and lax antitrust laws. I pay hundreds of dollars a year on newspaper subscriptions and I refuse to believe that I'm the reason any of that is happening.

[shanecleveland]

I guess we are going down a rabbit hole that 12ft-dot-io doesn't specifically address — it doesn't bypass paywalls. Regardless, #2 is an option. And the choice is entirely yours.

I get more peeved at the entitlement many feel to use ad blockers and rail against content producers monetizing their sites, when the choice to not consume the content is an option. Ask my why I gave up twitter a few weeks ago :)

[jszymborski]

> 12ft-dot-io doesn't specifically address — it doesn't bypass paywalls.

13ft does, I just tested it on https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/19/us/politics/hillary-clint...

> Regardless, #2 is an option. And the choice is entirely yours.

I can also choose not to read over the shoulder of someone reading an article on the train or averting my eyes at the headlines displayed at a newsstand. Somehow, I can't find in me the slavish devotion to the media industry margins required to do so.

> I get more peeved at the entitlement many feel to use ad blockers and rail against content producers monetizing their sites, when the choice to not consume the content is an option.

This is such a confusing opinion, and an even more baffling to thrust it unto others.

The best thing to do for ones computer safety is to run an ad blocker, as acknowledged by even the FBI[0]. Profiling by ad companies makes our world more insecure and inequitable. I deeply despite selling client data as a business model, as it seems you might as well.

So, your position is that I should both lodge my complaint against their unfair dealings by not consuming their website, but that it is also unjust for me to evade tracking and block ads because it hurts their bottom-line which is unethical to begin with . This sorta feels like chastising me for walking out of the room while TV ads run and deigning to watch the rest of the programme.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/22/fbi-ad-blocker/

[shanecleveland]

It’s baffling to me why you would insist on consuming content produced by such dangerous abusers of your security and privacy. And then thrusting your opinion that all content should be free onto all sites monetized by ads is further confusing.

[jszymborski]

> It’s baffling to me why you would insist on consuming content produced by such dangerous abusers of your security and privacy.

Because I'm not an ascetic monk.

> And then thrusting your opinion that all content should be free onto all sites monetized by ads is further confusing.

I'm not telling you to install an ad blocker. I'm just telling you I am.

[shanecleveland]

> Because I'm not an ascetic monk.

That’s glib. It is possible to discern websites that are safe, respect privacy and are generally pleasing to visit without an ad blocker. If you deem them unsafe, leave, don’t log entirely off the internet.

[shanecleveland]

I’m not saying you are telling me to. I’m pointing out that you are depriving sites from their chosen method of monetization while continuing to consume their content. Effectively “averting your eyes” from their ads, instead of just not visiting the site.

I’m not accusing you of anything. It’s just simply what you are doing. It’s the mental gymnastics these threads are always full of justifying the wholesale disavowal of all ad-supported content that is hard to follow.