BrianKrebsSep 21, 2025

We all know that many news sites have paywalls. It is, after all, some or a big part of how they've chosen to fund their news gathering. There are lots of ways around paywalls or to access individual stories behind one: e.g., archive.is or archive.today lets you search a news article link to see if it's already been saved, and frequently you can read the full story that way.

I mention this because I post a lot of links to stories that are behind paywalls, and a common reply is "paywall," as if a) that wasn't obvious and b) the link was somehow discovered to be serving malware or something. Sometimes I will post an archive.today link to a story if it's urgent and paywalled, but it's definitely not my job to do that and I've started muting the "paywall" whiners.

Show threadJust a Mr BillSep 22, 2025
@briankrebs For me, it’s all good if you say “subscription required” or something to that effect. Otherwise, if I follow a link and start reading only to be stopped in my tracks by a requirement to log in with a paid account, I will become annoyed with that site and I’ll extend that annoyance to whoever posted the link. I don’t know if that’s right or wrong; it’s just how I react.
Show threadBrianKrebsSep 23, 2025
@billd That makes a lot of sense. But when you're looking at a link to a NYT story, you kinda know whether you have a subscription there or not, right? I'm generally not linking to random, unknown news destinations.
Show threadJust a Mr Bill
@briankrebs I do know what I subscribe to. For sites I don’t pay for, I eventually hit enough disappointment to remember a site that I can’t access. For example, Los Angeles Times? I won’t click anymore. But some news sites allow up to 3–5 free views a month, and some are free with an astounding quantity of ads. And sometimes the person posting uses a “gift” link, which I really appreciate. Of course you can do what you want, but this is my experience with our broken news ecosystem.
Sep 23, 2025 at 11:49pmWeb