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You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

mcsweeneys.net

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Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#31

Post by bsder »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #15
akulbe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped watching and reading the news, in general. I have some friends who balked at the idea when I mentioned it. They'd say, "Oh, but how do you keep up on important news?" I don't. My life is better for letting it go. If something is genuinely important, and I really need to know - I always end up finding out somehow.

I think a reasonable barometer for a lot of news is: will this be important or relevant in 1 month? If the answer is "no", then it's probably more entertainment than anything else. However if I were to try and steelman the opposition for your position, I'd probably explore the argument that you could be living a very privileged life which might be part of the reason for why you're able to ignore the news. For certain…

> However if I were to try and steelman the opposition for your position, I'd probably explore the argument that you could be living a very privileged life which might be part of the reason for why you're able to ignore the news.

Well, the other issue is that people pay too much attention to national news and waaaay to little attention to local news.

That fracking site that just opened up next to your farm should probably occupy your attention. The four slobs trying to bring fiber to your town need your support. The fact that your local sheriff's office is swinging around with military gear might be a bit of a concern. etc.

Sure, you want to make sure you are paying attention to whether the fascists are trying to take over nationally, however, those same people can do a lot more direct damage to you by taking over local control.

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#32

Post by airstrike »

a2128 wrote: post #27
ReadCarlBarks wrote: post #2

Most sites use simple cookies or a localStorage entry to limit how many articles you can read in a month. You can bypass this with a private tab or by disabling JavaScript with uBlock Origin: * https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/open-in-temp-container/ * https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-... * https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...

I learned once of a quick workaround that's baffling - putting a dot at the end of the domain name (example.com/page becomes example.com./page) Apparently this usually still resolves to the same page but the browser treats it as a different domain with separate cookies and localStorage, so it would bypass the limit, but if you kept doing it then it'd probably accumulate free articles still and stop working

> so it would bypass the limit, but if you kept doing it then it'd probably accumulate free articles still and stop working

at which point one could perhaps try visiting example.com../page

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#33

Post by akira2501 »

remoquete wrote: post #9
akira2501 wrote: post #3

> You’ll have to say to them gently, softly, “To be honest, I have no fucking clue. I was out of free articles.” You can't copyright facts and journalism belongs to the people not to the institutions that are capable of publishing editorials at scale.

Quality journalism, and, even more importantly, free journalism (as in neutral or unbiased), costs money. I think a subscription is a very low effort compared to the kind of risks and hard work top reporters go through. Another angle: prose and code describe facts using slightly different languages, but would you say that code (or institutions capable of publishing code at scale) shouldn't exist or that they should "…

Journalism does not cost money. Running a company that is attempting to profit off of publishing costs money. Or have you never read anything produced at no benefit to the author that has ever informed you? I think you're putting the cart before the horse, and advertising supported journalism has always existed, and these companies would rather collect CPM from google than do legitimate placement of ads in their own content, which would be unblockable.

No, what I'm saying is, the existence of institutions that can publish at scale has no impact on whether individuals can do it or not. I can write code whether Google exists or doesn't. In that sense it belongs to individuals.

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#35

Post by kthejoker2 »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #5

When I ask older family members where they were or how they reacted when some important event happened, they usually say something like, busy with real life. Being glued to the news is a modern phenomenon, it’s not the required state of being

It goes hand in hand with the always connected lifestyle.

Work Slack at 10pm.

Your kids having phones at school 'just in case.'

People upset you didn't text them back for last minute dinner plans.

Something beyond first world problems at this point. Things I'm not even allowed to reject or resist. (I do resist.)

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#36

Post by [deleted] »

itsoktocry wrote: post #4
ReadCarlBarks wrote: post #2

Most sites use simple cookies or a localStorage entry to limit how many articles you can read in a month. You can bypass this with a private tab or by disabling JavaScript with uBlock Origin: * https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/open-in-temp-container/ * https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-... * https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...

I mean, yeah? This entirely misses the point of the article. In fact, it couldn't have been a worse shot. I don't know enough about the economics of this stuff, but I'm willing to pay for good online writing. I have a national paper subscription, two magazines and a handful of substacks I subscribe to. But this feel like a price point issue for me. Why is everything $9.99/month (close to $15/month CAD)? Where are all…

[deleted]

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#38

Post by bqmjjx0kac »

airstrike wrote: post #32
a2128 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned once of a quick workaround that's baffling - putting a dot at the end of the domain name (example.com/page becomes example.com./page) Apparently this usually still resolves to the same page but the browser treats it as a different domain with separate cookies and localStorage, so it would bypass the limit, but if you kept doing it then it'd probably accumulate free articles still and stop working

> so it would bypass the limit, but if you kept doing it then it'd probably accumulate free articles still and stop working at which point one could perhaps try visiting example.com../page

The reason the trailing dot works is that it represents the implicit root DNS node. Browsers do the dumb thing and consider it a different domain, but AFAIK there's no good reason not to canonicalize the domain name.

All that to say, no, you sadly can't add another trailing dot.

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#39

Post by ToucanLoucan »

red_admiral wrote: post #16
itsoktocry wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, yeah? This entirely misses the point of the article. In fact, it couldn't have been a worse shot. I don't know enough about the economics of this stuff, but I'm willing to pay for good online writing. I have a national paper subscription, two magazines and a handful of substacks I subscribe to. But this feel like a price point issue for me. Why is everything $9.99/month (close to $15/month CAD)? Where are all…

Blogger siderea has talked about this a lot in relation to patreon, and the challenges for any platform wanting to replace it. EDIT: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1824441.html and https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1371510.html Apparently it comes down to how card processing fees work, as long as there's a constant fixed cost per payment (whether or not there is also a percentage fee), "microtransactions" become unecono…

I think most places get around this by having you pay for so many months at a go, instead of each month. Less flexible but I don't mind it.

Re: You've Read Your Last Free Article, Such Is the Nature of Mortality

#40

Post by bqmjjx0kac »

rightbyte wrote: post #25
akulbe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped watching and reading the news, in general. I have some friends who balked at the idea when I mentioned it. They'd say, "Oh, but how do you keep up on important news?" I don't. My life is better for letting it go. If something is genuinely important, and I really need to know - I always end up finding out somehow.

It is usually better to read about stuff like months later when the dust have settled. Watching CNN lazer focus on some "developing story" with almost nothing to talk about but gossip makes my head hurt. If the local bridge is closed due to X people tell you.

Have you found a good place to read about slightly less current events? I feel like most articles are little salami slices of events as they occur, without context.
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