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Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

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Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#11

Post by knd775 »

blackpowder12 wrote: post #5

I don’t get it, this stuff is already behind a paywall already. There’s no darkening of the internet of news if news is already paywalled. Looks like false controversy to me. All publishers have to do is demand a login and that’s it. Articles that are now behind a paywall will continue to do so. There’s no difference that I can understand outside of a slight adjustment in paywall protection. Seriously can anyone expl…

They've been using soft paywalls which allow people to read a certain number of articles per month for free. To prevent users from simply using incognito mode to pretend every visit is their first visit, publishers started detecting incognito mode and blocking them from reading articles using it (without signing in).

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#12

Post by minedwiz »

blackpowder12 wrote: post #5

I don’t get it, this stuff is already behind a paywall already. There’s no darkening of the internet of news if news is already paywalled. Looks like false controversy to me. All publishers have to do is demand a login and that’s it. Articles that are now behind a paywall will continue to do so. There’s no difference that I can understand outside of a slight adjustment in paywall protection. Seriously can anyone expl…

No, I'm with you. It's an odd piece.

Purely anecdotally, I never remember seeing the "Incognito walls" before a year or so ago; paywalls are clearly able to function even if they can't stop the use of private modes.

Many/most paywalls can be bypassed by blocking or wiping cookies. I wonder if news sites are going to come for cookie blocking next.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#14

Post by shusson »

pilif wrote: post #7

No. This isn't about Google unlocking paywalls. This is about Google fixing a bug where the presence of Icognito Mode could be detected with JS which is totally against the premise of Incognito Mode whose purpose it is to be undetected, not to be detected as somebody wanting to be undetected. Publishers can everybody to be logged in in order to read their content. Then none of this applies.

> Publishers can everybody to be logged in in order to read their content

This is part of the articles point. Forcing people to login is going to hurt conversion.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#15

Post by pcora »

This entire system is just borked. And part of it, is why fake-news spread so easily, since people can't read on newspapers without having to pay for it (which should be fine) but in poor countries, people are not paying for this and end up relying on low quality news sites, which are filled with fake and click bait stuff that gets shared on whatsapp all the time.

Hard paywalls will just make even less people to read sites like nyt, wp, wsj and their revenue will probably go even down.

subscribe to read? no way. my modus operandi is that if I get to a link and it asks for a login or to subscribe, I just close the tab. there's a few websites that I don't even click anymore because of that.. and the list just keeps growing to me.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#16

Post by vorpalhex »

duxup wrote: post #6

I feel for sites that provide a service that want to bring users in, and still offer them some content up front for free. Having said that as a user I should be able to be anonymous at will too...

You can still offer people content for free and also not be defeated by incognito. Offer regular news articles for free, and make premium editorials and analysis require a (reasonably priced) subscription.

But anecdotally, news orgs will never get my money while their subscription terms continue to be asinine. I will gladly give a newspaper $25 - $50 a year for access. I will not play these $X/week for odd week increment games.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#19

Post by hedora »

qmarchi wrote: post #10

There are going to be people complaining about the new requirement to have an account to view content. To the publishers, you should _really_ use some kind of federated login. Google, Apple, Facebook, etc. but don't forget those who are willing to have a unique account.

At this point, publishers should probably just accept that any tracking is unacceptable, so if they want people to pay (and therefore login), then they need to stop funneling data to ad networks and other PII aggregators.

Re: Google unlocks 33% of publisher paywalls on July 30

#20

Post by tjoff »

knd775 wrote: post #11
blackpowder12 wrote: post #5

I don’t get it, this stuff is already behind a paywall already. There’s no darkening of the internet of news if news is already paywalled. Looks like false controversy to me. All publishers have to do is demand a login and that’s it. Articles that are now behind a paywall will continue to do so. There’s no difference that I can understand outside of a slight adjustment in paywall protection. Seriously can anyone expl…

They've been using soft paywalls which allow people to read a certain number of articles per month for free. To prevent users from simply using incognito mode to pretend every visit is their first visit, publishers started detecting incognito mode and blocking them from reading articles using it (without signing in).

Which was quite frustrating for us that only ever surf in incognito.

Now we'll see what their response is, probably something moronic as 5 views per IP.

Better to just require an account straight up. Then there is no point for anyone to link to them and we will get rid of the whole "will I be able to read this link mess".

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