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by s_dev 107 days ago
Paywall links shouldn't be allowed on Hacker News. It's not possible to subscribe to every service that could be theoretically be submitted. We're not all on $350k SV wages either.

That said it's hard to gauge this story as it's a one sided affair, author maybe 100% in the right but that can't really be determined.

4 comments

hn/dangs stance on this: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=paywalls%20by:dang&dateRange=a...

tldr: paywalls are allowed as long as they can be circumvented easily, eg via archive.ph or similar services

Dang also indefatigably links various threads together with the clear intention of making things clearer for posterity. archive.is is great at the time of writing but will it be here a year from now or will there be another successor on another domain? I hope so but I would hate to think Hacker News will become discussions on articles people can't access. I think a good rule is if it can be archived on the wayback machine it's suitable. Will the wayback machine be here 1 year from now? I think much more likely than archive.is and there is no escaping that such bets have to be made.

"Circumvented easily" is more nebulous than people give it credit for.

It's 350k now? I need to catch up
i don't get a paywall when accessing (maybe ublock?) but either way:

https://archive.ph/DbTn2

God forbid we support journalism that -- gasp -- costs money.

Regardless, in this instance it's someone's blog.

You can support journalism independently of submitting to Hacker News. Paid sites aren't suitable for aggregators like this one including the likes of the nytimes et al. Even if they sometimes have great content we'd simply have to go without.
How is some random ex-Uber-engineer's self-written story "journalism" in any shape or form?