An example that comes close to my use case is this. I’m in a bookshop and have bought a copy of NY Times and the WSJ. I then see an interesting article on page 13 of the Chicago Tribune. I pick up a copy and read the article and put it back. Did I steal from Chicago Tribune? Maybe. Is there a way I can compensate them for this? I’m not sure of a good way to do this. Bypass Paywalls fills a similar gap in my use case when I run into articles I don’t have subscriptions for. I endorse supporting blogs/newsletters/news sites if one gets significant value from them.
I am not really convinced of this case. Of course you can compensate for that. You can buy the Chicago Tribune. Now you may say that is exaggerated, for just one article. But when you buy the NYT and the WSJ, you also pay for a lot of articles you don’t care about. I think in this case we can hope that there are other people who buy the Chicago Tribune and also sometimes read an article in the NYT without paying for that. Or maybe you sometimes buy the NYT and every once in a while you buy the CT. In a certain social equilibrium, a variety of newspapers can exist, and I think that is more relevant than the exact payment or profit at the margin.
Now technology has changed, and there are paywalls. As in the case of the newspapers, the ethics of using an app that circumvents paywalls may depend on the way you use it, and on the social equilibrium. But it’s hard to say how exactly, and which behavior should generalize.
An example that comes close to my use case is this. I’m in a bookshop and have bought a copy of NY Times and the WSJ. I then see an interesting article on page 13 of the Chicago Tribune. I pick up a copy and read the article and put it back. Did I steal from Chicago Tribune? Maybe. Is there a way I can compensate them for this? I’m not sure of a good way to do this. Bypass Paywalls fills a similar gap in my use case when I run into articles I don’t have subscriptions for. I endorse supporting blogs/newsletters/news sites if one gets significant value from them.
I am not really convinced of this case. Of course you can compensate for that. You can buy the Chicago Tribune. Now you may say that is exaggerated, for just one article. But when you buy the NYT and the WSJ, you also pay for a lot of articles you don’t care about. I think in this case we can hope that there are other people who buy the Chicago Tribune and also sometimes read an article in the NYT without paying for that. Or maybe you sometimes buy the NYT and every once in a while you buy the CT. In a certain social equilibrium, a variety of newspapers can exist, and I think that is more relevant than the exact payment or profit at the margin.
Now technology has changed, and there are paywalls. As in the case of the newspapers, the ethics of using an app that circumvents paywalls may depend on the way you use it, and on the social equilibrium. But it’s hard to say how exactly, and which behavior should generalize.