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The Wall Street Journal to Close Google Loophole Entirely

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Re: The Wall Street Journal to Close Google Loophole Entirely

#301

Post by germanier »

DashRattlesnake wrote: post #291
friedman23 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economist is the only other news source that I know of that is on par.

I've heard that it's reporters are actually quite young and inexperienced, but the editorial anonymity masks that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist#Editorial_anonym... : Is there any truth to that?

The Economist has a list of their corresponds and editors on their website http://mediadirectory.economist.com

They don't seem to be significantly younger or more inexperienced than other journalists. However, they don't have journalistic heavyweights that do month-long investigations or pump out one price winning report after another. Those are rare anyway.

I know that they use a lot of stringers that remain unnamed. It is not unusual to have freelancers do research without naming them but as far as I know they also contribute whole articles. Likely these are people that also work for other news outlets.

Re: The Wall Street Journal to Close Google Loophole Entirely

#302

Post by ctrl_freak »

azag0 wrote: post #103
ctrl_freak wrote: post #28

If anyone's looking for another workaround, the article actually hints at the solution: Facebook's l.php redirect that it uses when you click on a link shared through the platform. It functions similarly to the Google redirect, and you don't even need a Facebook account for it to work. E.g. https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/article...

How come this isn't culturally perceived in the same way as not paying for software or movies or music? I've read various reasons why people don't want to pay. That's fine. But then simply don't read it.

The reason I posted the workaround is because I feel like the publisher is trying to have their cake and eat it too. In other words, they enjoy the publicity they get from having their articles shared on Google, Facebook, Hacker News, but these sites usually don't want to feature articles that require their users to pay, so WSJ sets up a soft paywall that lets some of these users view the article for free.

But of course that becomes a bit of a blurry moral line. If I start browsing Google News in the hopes of stumbling upon a WSJ article so I can read it for free, is that immoral? What about if I google the headline of an article I'm interested in? Automatically setting my referer to facebook.com whenever I visit wsj.com probably goes too far, but then where do you draw the line?

Anyway, I feel very strongly that either everyone from HN should be able to freely read an article shared here, or no one. If no one can read it, then the link shouldn't be allowed here.

Re: The Wall Street Journal to Close Google Loophole Entirely

#303

Post by abiox »

kofejnik wrote: post #188
kaspiCZ wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's pretend you developed a piece of software you want to sell. People download it without paying you. What do you do in that case?

it's a logical fallacy to assume that people who downloaded your work would have discovered it and actually paid for it if there was no free option a lot of artists would PAY to get millions of downloads/views

> it's a logical fallacy to assume that people who downloaded your work would have discovered it and actually paid for it if there was no free option

it's a "logical fallacy" to assume they wouldn't

Re: The Wall Street Journal to Close Google Loophole Entirely

#304

Post by abiox »

vonklaus wrote: post #272
gaius wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me know when you can pay rent or buy groceries with retweets.

it's unclear if you do not realize thousands of people make their living full-time as promoters on social media. They literally pay rent with money that was paid to them proportionate to their retweets. Or if this was hyperbole to underscore your disagreement with a freemium business model

this seems like an equivocation

Re: The Wall Street Journal to Close Google Loophole Entirely

#306

Post by hnbroseph »

harryjo wrote: post #35
jay_kyburz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would consider perhaps $5-$10 a month if the WSJ was going to be my only source of news. If I could trust it to provide me with all I need every morning while I eat my breakfast. Unfortunately I live in Australia so most stuff in WSJ I don't care about. (And we have the ABC)

Why is a full feed of quality news worth less to you than Netflix?

"quality news" is rarely consistent or reliable.

wsj in particular had some rather absurd hit pieces on bernie sanders.

Re: The Wall Street Journal to Close Google Loophole Entirely

#308

Post by paulddraper »

ctrl_freak wrote: post #302
azag0 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come this isn't culturally perceived in the same way as not paying for software or movies or music? I've read various reasons why people don't want to pay. That's fine. But then simply don't read it.

The reason I posted the workaround is because I feel like the publisher is trying to have their cake and eat it too. In other words, they enjoy the publicity they get from having their articles shared on Google, Facebook, Hacker News, but these sites usually don't want to feature articles that require their users to pay, so WSJ sets up a soft paywall that lets some of these users view the article for free. But of cou…

> everyone from HN should be able to freely read an article shared here, or no one. If no one can read it, then the link shouldn't be allowed here.

Then we'll have the laments: oh the ads, the humanity; or, why does all journalism suck?

Re: The Wall Street Journal to Close Google Loophole Entirely

#309

Post by hnbroseph »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #134
gesman wrote: post #57

With every single news outlet taking polical position lately - it became intolerable to read or find somewhat objective news source. I don't mind paying <$10 / mo for clean no BS objective and detailed coverage.

Is WSJ not a political news source? They're owned by News Corp and at least in the UK that conglomerate is responsible for the most politicised and polarising media.

yes, wsj is politicized.

Re: The Wall Street Journal to Close Google Loophole Entirely

#310

Post by njloof »

Klathmon wrote: post #233
mirimir wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already a system for selling ad space, based on tracking data and real-time bidding. Why would it be so hard to use the same sort of system for paid access, replacing ad resellers with readers?

That is what Google Contributor once did, but was shut down recently to be completely re-thought from the ground up (and hopefully will be relaunching in the next few months) because: 1. Nobody used it 2. It didn't block ALL ads, just most (based on if you won or lost the bid) 3. There was a LOT of backlash against it because it was google and even though you can opt out of tracking nobody believes them. 4. The old "…

I used it, but:

- it was poorly advertised (irony!); I only found out about it from a Google engineer that said, "This is probably the kind of thing you'd pay for"

- US only

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