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Bypass Paywalls: a browser extension to help bypass paywalls for selected sites

github.com

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Re: Bypass Paywalls: a browser extension to help bypass paywalls for selected sites

#41

Post by Tenoke »

endisneigh wrote: post #34

Do people generally feel like digital goods should be free? Seems like people are always trying to rationalize bypassing paywalls, pirating games and using emulators, torrenting movies, etc. It’s very ironic that this is a tech forum, much of which is software and this view is prevalent among some here

I take advantage (pirate and use this extension) mostly because where I've grown up it was normalized (Eastern Europe) and because it's convenient. Nowadays I do try to support more but I am not so sure I really buy the arguments that this isn't wrong. The way I see it those who support subsidize the rest and that's not necessarily a bad thing but I can be convinced otherwise.

Re: Bypass Paywalls: a browser extension to help bypass paywalls for selected sites

#42

Post by cercatrova »

FYI use the clean version which removes Google analytics. It's also updated more frequently while the one in the link is almost a year old: https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-chrome-clean

I use this, and it's great. I recommend using uBlock Origin as well to remove ads on these sites.

Re: Bypass Paywalls: a browser extension to help bypass paywalls for selected sites

#43

Post by jrockway »

pier25 wrote: post #37
another_poster wrote: post #21

PSA: Newspapers educate the public, and their services are essential for the functioning of our democracies. The best newspapers fund their operations through subscriptions, so please help society become well-informed by subscribing to your favorite newspapers.

We need a better solution than subscribing to a monolithic news source. Specially when they make it super hard to unsubscribe cough NYT cough .

You can subscribe through your phone, so then Apple is in charge of cancelation. You can link your accounts and still view things on the desktop website. (I think they also have bundles to make it non-monolithic, but that probably doesn't translate to your desktop because... that would be too convenient.)

Re: Bypass Paywalls: a browser extension to help bypass paywalls for selected sites

#44

Post by dimitrios1 »

another_poster wrote: post #21

PSA: Newspapers educate the public, and their services are essential for the functioning of our democracies. The best newspapers fund their operations through subscriptions, so please help society become well-informed by subscribing to your favorite newspapers.

PSA: (National) Newspapers incite rage for clicks and revenue generation, and serve as a propagandizing arm for our beloved 3 letter agencies. Their services are essential for ensuring the success of our neoconservative war hawks in Washington to continue to fund their war machine with hundreds of billions of dollars while neglecting more pressing matters like our nation's crumbling infrastructure and completely unaffordable healthcare system. So please help society by becoming a well-informed citizen, and taking everything someone is trying to sell you as the truth with a heavy grain of salt.

Re: Bypass Paywalls: a browser extension to help bypass paywalls for selected sites

#45

Post by NikolaNovak »

pier25 wrote: post #37
another_poster wrote: post #21

PSA: Newspapers educate the public, and their services are essential for the functioning of our democracies. The best newspapers fund their operations through subscriptions, so please help society become well-informed by subscribing to your favorite newspapers.

We need a better solution than subscribing to a monolithic news source. Specially when they make it super hard to unsubscribe cough NYT cough .

Oh man; I was going to support the GP post, but then I remembered what unsubscribing from The Economist was like, and my mouth is filed with Bile & my brain is filled with pure sheer hate.

Re: Bypass Paywalls: a browser extension to help bypass paywalls for selected sites

#46

Post by pier25 »

echelon wrote: post #17
makach wrote: post #6

An article worth reading is worth buying.

Except the industry is stuck in 1995. You want to pay $50/yr [1] for twenty different news websites? All I want to do is read one article. It needs a Spotify / Netflix model. Or the promise of micropayments that never happened. (Yeah, I'll pay 10 cents for an article. And also learn to distrust your site if you shill clickbait.) [1] NYT digital cost

Totally agree.

Micropayments have not worked because major news outlets won't use them. Technically it's a solved problem. See Coil for example:

https://coil.com/

Re: Bypass Paywalls: a browser extension to help bypass paywalls for selected sites

#47

Post by echelon »

DevKoala wrote: post #4

This is cool, but how is it different from piracy?

So, piracy turned out to be a great thing for games (Steam), movies (Netflix), and music (Spotify). It just hasn't happened at scale to the news world yet.

I will not pay $50/yr for 20 different news sites. It's absurd. Who do these people think they are?

I'm glad projects like this are being created. It addresses.a boneheaded, outmoded industry that won't meet consumers where they actually are.

These sorts of "news piracy" apps will force change for the good of all parties. But they need one more piece to really take off: social P2P sharing. Strip articles of ads, share them in a p2p protocol (which could also develop interest graph capabilities), add voting, maybe comments, and definitely include the article's pictures.

1 - it would be fantastic as a reader

2 - the entire news industry that is stuck in 1995 would be forced to adopt to a Spotify model or adopt the microtransactions that have been promised since the 90's.

I would love to subscribe to a single source for all news. I'd pay a hefty fee. I'd also be happy to pay $0.10 an article. (I'd learn to avoid sites that shill clickbait, too.)

This whole industry sucks for readers. I support anything that gets them to adapt to change and become more consumer friendly.

Re: Bypass Paywalls: a browser extension to help bypass paywalls for selected sites

#48

Post by faridelnasire »

Maybe pick 1 or 2 newspapers you consider to be truthful to actually get a subscriptions for, besides using this addon. I get it, there are newspapers out there you really don't check out that often, and they have no free articles per month or "purchase this article", and paying 20 dollars for a subscription for 2 articles a month at 10 different newspapers is a little much. But the more people don't pay for news, the more clickbaity and hyped up journalism will be.

Re: Bypass Paywalls: a browser extension to help bypass paywalls for selected sites

#50

Post by hamaluik »

Is there a service in the same vein as music streaming, but for news outlets? I'd be happy to pay for a subscription somewhere at a reasonable price, but not happy to pay for and manage 150+ individual subscriptions (like what this tool provides). Granted I wouldn't ever actually sign up for most of them, but managing even more than a couple would be rather undesirable. Perhaps something with pay-per-view built in, given how infrequently I come across articles from certain publishers?
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