Semi Off Topic post, but helpful, I hope.
Newspaper and magazine paywalls
@Leap1 linked to a WSJ article and mentioned that it was behind their paywall. That reminded me that I meant to share this with you all.
I expect that we all run into paywalls at many news sites. I understand the need for them; writers and publishers deserve to be paid. I follow the writer Kelly Barnhill on BlueSky, and she mentioned that many libraries have subscriptions to newspapers and periodicals that allow you to download articles through your library card. We have library cards through 3 different library systems, 2 by reciprocal agreements and one we pay for. One of them offered the WSJ and the NYT this way. I went through my library’s site and signed up to read the WSJ this way. If you are interested, you might look at your local libraries’ sites and see if they offer this too.
I subscribe to the Washington Post and they allow me to share up to 10 articles per month. I believe other major newspapers have a similar arrangement, as well.
We subscribe to 3 actual printed newspapers, dropped in our driveway daily or as published. Local paper is now just once a week, County/Area paper is a daily, and the SF Examiner.Chronicle Sunday paper. Those also give us online access to their e-Editions, as well as past copies… So most any paywalled article can generally be found in one of them or by Googling the headlines… So one way or another the authors are being paid, maybe not directly, depending on the source, but there is a connection… Inlaw subscribes to some other publications, he manages to share them, again, it just extends the viewership, one wy or another, most of what he share I see in our own subscriptions… Inundated by news, opinions…
But he didn’t describe a hack but a legitimate way to read those articles without having to use a hack. The papers have provided this service to the libraries to be used in such a way in which case… no hack.
Maybe hack was a bad choice of words.
In either case, whatever you want to call it, it isn’t in the same spirit as saying writers and publishers deserve to be paid
It isn’t free for the libraries, they are paying to provide the access to those publications. I’m sure the newspaper would rather sell you a direct subscription but they are compensated indirectly as the service is not free to the library
The libraries buy subscriptions that allow them to do this. I don’t know this, but I assume that the price libraries pay for the ability to share the publication is significantly more than the price an individual pays for a personal subscription. This is no more a hack than going into or online and borrowing a book from the library.