HN practice of circumventing paywall on news sites

#1

Post by edavison1 » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 7:54 PM UTC

Why is this practice allowed? Seems like every article that gets posted here has a link leading people to a non-paywalled version of the article. Does this not violate one of the rules of HN? Or I guess I'm asking, shouldn't it?

In the guidelines it specifically says "It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds." This feels weird to me because it's encouraging piracy/unauthorized viewing of paywalled content. Particularly in an age where media businesses are struggling to compete and many have instituted paywalls in order to financially support quality journalism, why is it the policy of this website to tacitly allow users to get free access?

Re: HN practice of circumventing paywall on news sites

#2

Post by A_D_E_P_T » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 8:00 PM UTC

Serious question: Do you think that news sites aren't aware of archive.today?

They allow their paywalls to be bypassed. (There are a few that don't, but most are permissive.) You might want to consider why this is the case.

Re: HN practice of circumventing paywall on news sites

#3

Post by edavison1 » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 8:08 PM UTC

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #2

Serious question: Do you think that news sites aren't aware of archive.today? They allow their paywalls to be bypassed. (There are a few that don't, but most are permissive.) You might want to consider why this is the case.

I'm sure they are, but I don't see how it relates to my question. Like, you wouldn't see anyone posting links to download a movie, or an app, that would otherwise require people to pay. So why is the practice so common to links here? I mean, shouldn't HN users pay for the journalism they're so eager to discuss?

Re: HN practice of circumventing paywall on news sites

#4

Post by walterbell » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 8:34 PM UTC

edavison1 wrote: post #3

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #2

Serious question: Do you think that news sites aren't aware of archive.today? They allow their paywalls to be bypassed. (There are a few that don't, but most are permissive.) You might want to consider why this is the case.

I'm sure they are, but I don't see how it relates to my question. Like, you wouldn't see anyone posting links to download a movie, or an app, that would otherwise require people to pay. So why is the practice so common to links here? I mean, shouldn't HN users pay for the journalism they're so eager to discuss?

Enablement of archive links is a decentralized decision made by content owners.

Shouldn't HN respect the distribution decisions of content owners? The primary link on an HN story is always the paywalled link, which offers search engine benefits to the target.

There's a long history of multi-channel distribution policy and variations in priced and non-priced benefits to content owners, from the first days of print to the ever-evolving online economy of paywalls, traffic brokers, ad brokers, content scraping and surveillance capitalism.

Re: HN practice of circumventing paywall on news sites

#5

Post by gkbrk » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 8:35 PM UTC

edavison1 wrote: post #3

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #2

Serious question: Do you think that news sites aren't aware of archive.today? They allow their paywalls to be bypassed. (There are a few that don't, but most are permissive.) You might want to consider why this is the case.

I'm sure they are, but I don't see how it relates to my question. Like, you wouldn't see anyone posting links to download a movie, or an app, that would otherwise require people to pay. So why is the practice so common to links here? I mean, shouldn't HN users pay for the journalism they're so eager to discuss?

Here, have a link to Spider-Man.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:8148C169C4B84048FCF8D44AAF275F82BC33829E

Re: HN practice of circumventing paywall on news sites

#6

Post by edavison1 » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 8:39 PM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #4

edavison1 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they are, but I don't see how it relates to my question. Like, you wouldn't see anyone posting links to download a movie, or an app, that would otherwise require people to pay. So why is the practice so common to links here? I mean, shouldn't HN users pay for the journalism they're so eager to discuss?

Enablement of archive links is a decentralized decision made by content owners. Shouldn't HN respect the distribution decisions of content owners? The primary link on an HN story is always the paywalled link, which offers search engine benefits to the target. There's a long history of multi-channel distribution policy and variations in priced and non-priced benefits to content owners, from the first days of print to…

Thanks, I think this answers my question, appreciate it