Quality journalism costs money. Period.
Sometimes it’s ads, sometimes it’s asking for an email address, sometimes it requires a subscription. The bottom line is good reporting is not free.
There’s also a million and one ways to bypass most paywalls that require very little effort (assuming you bother to put forth that minimum effort rather than whining “PaYWaLLEd!” in the comments). Sometimes it’s just a soft paywall (daily article limits, regional locking, etc), but some people still can’t help but whine about it and demand you accommodate them (while refusing to put forth any effort to obtain the information themselves).
“Just post an archive link instead” I often hear.
That’s a terrible solution (and Lemmy UI’s worst feature), and here’s why:
Astronauts Land on Moon: Discover It Really IS made of cheese
Source: archive.ph/abcdefg
Just scrolling through your feed: Is that headline from a reputable source or some trash tabloid, troll farm, or crazy person’s blog?
Should it be believed, taken seriously, or given more than 1/2 second thought? Is it even worth clicking into the article at all?
It’s absolutely impossible to tell because its source is obfuscated with an archive.ph link which tells you nothing about where the headline comes from.
People scroll and just absorb headlines as fact, adding that little tidbit of information to their collective knowledge. I do it, you do it, we all do it. I get it: we’re busy with lives and can’t read every article that gets posted. I’m not shaming the practice.
Having the canonical source of news headlines apparent goes a long way to combating misinformation by giving context to the headline’s credibility, letting you know where the information is coming from, and what, if any, agenda it may be pushing. Obfuscating the sources removes all of those protections in a “trust me, bro, this is legit” kind of way.
It should not be on the poster to accommodate everyone’s tinfoil-hat reasons. If they prefer an alternate source, that is 100% on them to deal with.
PS: For those of you posting quality news with the official links and not kowtowing to the “pAyWAllEd!” crowd, I thank and salute you.
How about include the word “paywalled” in the post title? Then users can decide whether to click the link or not.
Headlines should always match the title. It’s not the poster’s job to know what’s paywalled and in what scenario.
What’s paywalled for you may not be for me (regional difference, article limit, etc). You hit a paywall, scale it yourself 🤷♂️
Wtf? It’s your link, of course you’d know if it was pay walled.
What kind of stupid shit is this?
No thanks. I’d rather the shared title be something not sensationalized or clickbaity as the original headlines often are.
The poster should damn well know what they are posting considering they’re the one posting it.
I said this in another comment, but paywalls are not applied universally. What’s paywalled for you may not be for me (or there may be daily limits, regional differences, etc).