Gregory's ServerMastodon is the only site where a user is guaranteed to gripe about a paywalled article every time. Folks, ads are dead. Subscriptions pay for the journalism and feed our families. A trial sub is cheap. I give away a lot of free links. You can read many with an email (regi-wall is not a paywall). It is easy to get around with research. You do you. Just don’t reply with a complaint or a paywall evasion. It’s kind of rude. I may block you. Move on. Read something else. It’s a big old internet.
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28 comments
@energisch_ Sure. Lots of free news. Or cheaper news. Everyone has different situations. But telling me “paywall, can’t read it” — yeah, I know.  @jsit No clue. Headline is often all you need anyway. Also, go outside! Read a book. Whatever. Your life is your own. Nothing is free, without a catch. Someone is paying, somehow. @sl007 @jalefkowit It is rude to gripe at me for doing my job. Free is pretty cheap anywhere. As the post explains it is very easy to figure out how to read without spending anything. Not my problem to tell you how to do it but I will block annoying posts. Fair warning that’s all  @sl007 @palafo @jalefkowit "I want to pay per view" --> here you go https://supertab.co :) Stay tuned, coming soon!  @glennf I can post lots of free NYT but it is a bit of work, especially on my phone, and it’s after midnight and nobody’s paying me to be on this platform… Apple News is a great deal, though ugly and annoying IMO. I pay for it, WaPo, NYT in print, New Yorker, podcasts, many other sources at my own expense. I also hit a lot of paywalls. Oh well. I move on. Nobody is going to get off your lawn if you use a Nazi platform for your subscriptions. Read and educate yourself why people have reasons to complain before you keep telling them they are rude. Insulting people due to one's own ignorance is far more rude in my book. Also: It is not your lawn, you get off it if you don't like people talking. @palafo@mstdn.social I don't want to pay for companies in advance, I only want to pay for content that I decide to consume (micropayment model). Or, as an alternative, I would pay a flat rate to a third party provider that gives me access to all contents (same model as music streaming). Folks, the wooden newspaper gods are dead.  I tried to read your post but after "Folks, ads are dead ..." I got a "You've reached your free toot limit" warning :-( @eloquence I can’t tell if you are joking lol. I don’t think I have ever hit a rate limit here — but then again I chip @eloquence Second toot costs twice as much as the first but I can put you on the installment plan  I wonder about paywall complaints. It's not just the frugal or impecunious who complain about subscriptions. They have access to public libraries. Some of the complaints arise from folks who don't want a particular news source to exist at all & want to drive it under. New York Times, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, New Yorker - all high visibility outlets & seemingly the focus of "I don't want to pay" targeted harassment campaigns. Fascist movements have subtle ways sometimes.  I don't knowingly post paywalled articles. Not everyone can afford to subscribe to one much less a handful of newspapers. It's absurd that knowledge/news is for those who can afford to pay for the privilege. No I don't have a solution, but acting like everyone can afford it is not a good look. Your "cheap" is another person's food or meds. Sometimes people post a gift link & typically note that in the post. I wish more people would note when a link is going to lead to a paywall. @palafo I would be more inclined to subscribe if the subscription removed to Stasi-like tracking from the websites (I never understood how reporters are fine with it). @palafo Wait, wait … you place _free_ ads for your product on infrastructure that is paid for by the people and now you complain they complain?   I have no idea what the fuck those people want, but they're annoying. I don't go and complain to someone who posted a story because that's weird and rude. It's like posting about a movie and people complaining they can't watch it without paying.  I'm here to gripe about you griping about people griping. But all kidding aside, what a strange thing to complain about, a pay walled article. Can't they just not read it? What do they want, for you to screen capture the article and send it to them? Sheesh! Still, even with all the bargain hunters in the #Fediverse this beats the heck out of #TwiX, where you get pay walls, and a bleak fascist hellscape to boot.  @palafo I see complaints about paywalls on X/Twitter all the time. This is not a Mastodon specific thing. @gamingonlinux @palafo |
@palafo or read online newspapers with online membership of a public library/university library. A good thing in Germany, those memberships cost around 20 Euro/year and you get access to many (also international) papers & media products.