The internet is a treasure trove of information… as well as misinformation. One would think reliable and accurate knowledge and data would be made just as important and accessible as food and water, especially given how commonplace (and lethal) stupidity is nowadays.
However, money trumps all in the end.
Imagine, you’re browsing the internet looking for recent happenings, or maybe you’re trying to learn some new trick, or… well… anything really. And you’re having to rely on an article to feed you that information.
You click on that article, only to be greeted by a rage-inducing sight: "You have reached your limit of free articles this month. To continue reading, please subscribe or log in."
I’m not sure why we let it become the norm for websites to make us pay tolls and sign passports just to be enlightened, but it's become commonplace and it is terrible.
No, I'm not paying for your stupid article. I’m not subscribing to your stupid monthly bill. I’m not wasting the time generating some fake email and password to become some dead account on your website which I’ll (most assuredly now) never visit again.
Any sites that do this, I immediately add to my URL block list permanently. And I suggest you, the reader, do the same.
You block me, I block you. Fair is fair.
Below are some examples of sites that have this cancerous limit despite the content of the article being legitimately concerning.
Yeah, I get it, these sites have to make revenue somehow, but here’s the thing…
They are feeding competition by encouraging users to go elsewhere (more of a “them” problem).
They are undermining the role of journalism, who should serve the public interest via neutrality and reliability, not to appeal to the private interests of the owners and/or subscribers.
Lack of income may make these sites more desperate, incentivizing them to generate sensationalism, clickbait, and outrage just to attract more clicks.
There are some alternatives to paywalls for news sites, such as:
Donations and memberships – The old-fashioned method. Tell the user via pop-up, “there’s a tip jar, jackass”, and point them to the PayPal button.
Sponsorships and partnerships – When in doubt, find a sponsor. Find someone to put an Old Spice ad in the corner of the page. Majority of normies don’t use an adblocker anymore – according to this site, the number of internet users using an adblock increased from 15.7% (2014) to 22% (2022), but consider the following...
The number of internet users has increased by about 93% from 2014 to 2022 as well. The percentage of adblock users has increased by about 72% in the same period. This means that the growth of adblock users is slightly slower than the growth of internet users overall.
If that isn't enough, adblock-blockers are also an option. And I assure you, the amount of people using adblock-block-blockers is small.
Relax on the subscription benefits – Ok, so maybe you don’t need to remove subscriptions altogether. Perhaps you could add smaller enticements that don’t punish the non-paying readers.
If all else fails, then you probably should’ve come equipped with a more sharpened axe to tackle the tree of server cost. Sorry buddy, but that’s how the cookie must crumble on the world wide web.
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