You got a few general answers already, but they talk about the hypothetical notion of bypassing paywalls, rather than about what a “bypass paywalls” addon actually does in the real world.
Newspaper websites want to have their cake and eat it, too: They simultaneously want their content to be available for free (so they e.g. get indexed in search engines and shared widely), and to then get people to pay for it. They do that by e.g. giving you a limited number of unrestricted articles to read per month, or by restricting all content except when it’s referred (i.e. linked) from specific other websites, or by making it a hassle to read unless you pay, etc.
The crucial point here is that the content is freely available somehow, and that its restrictions are intentionally somewhat flimsy (because otherwise search engines and people wouldn’t share the articles). That’s why addons can exist which are capable of disabling these restrictions.
Contrast that with paid Substack posts. Substack puts those behind true (hard) paywalls, doesn’t load the content on your local browser, and hence provides no attack surface to any addons intended to bypass them. Newspapers could do the same—but they don’t, because their business model requires non-tight paywalls.
Thanks for the answer but I don’t see how that touches the morality of bypassing paywalls. The morality would be the same if there were no technical paywall at all but the newspaper told people explicitly on page 1 that you are only allowed to read it if you paid, and there were a community of people telling each other “you can just click ‘continue’ and that’s okay”.
In the world you describe, both readers and newspapers would know that that statement was nonsense, and nobody would take it seriously. Or in a world where people did somehow take it seriously, the newspapers would go bankrupt after losing all their network effects because people wouldn’t encounter articles from search engines or word of mouth.
That’s my whole point. The business model of a newspaper crucially depends on there being free ways to read its content, and getting people to pay for it anyway. And once a business model depends on a “paywall” which is in fact a fiction or lie, I do think that bears on the morality of circumventing it. A newspaper can’t call people bad for circumventing a paywall when it could’ve made the paywall secure but intentionally chose not to.
This also bears on the notion of laws and enforceability: If you say “you can’t read this unless you pay”, and then don’t take the slightest steps (as in your original comment) or sufficient steps (as in the case of intentionally soft paywalls) to enforce this rule, then to what extent does this rule even really exist?
In the world you describe, both readers and newspapers would know that that statement was nonsense, and nobody would take it seriously.
I don’t see why that should be the case, given the similarity to exchanging ideas on how to avoid paywalls. In real life, people don’t tell each other that it’s okay to ignore the “please pay”, because people don’t “need” that advice, they just do ignore the “please pay”.
Or in a world where people did somehow take it seriously, the newspapers would go bankrupt after losing all their network effects because people wouldn’t encounter articles from search engines or word of mouth.
I guess that’s why many newspaper websites paywall their articles nowadays.
That’s my whole point. The business model of a newspaper crucially depends on there being free ways to read its content, and getting people to pay for it anyway. And once a business model depends on a “paywall” which is in fact a fiction or lie, I do think that bears on the morality of circumventing it. A newspaper can’t call people bad for circumventing a paywall when it could’ve made the paywall secure but intentionally chose not to.
Sorry, I don’t understand they point. The existence of the paywall clearly signals to people that the newspaper does not want them to read the content for free, whether or not the newspaper also decides to make it technically possible to read it such that indexing works etc.
This also bears on the notion of laws and enforceability: If you say “you can’t read this unless you pay”, and then don’t take the slightest steps (as in your original comment) or sufficient steps (as in the case of intentionally soft paywalls) to enforce this rule, then to what extent does this rule even really exist?
In my example, the newspaper did not tell people that they can’t read it if they did not pay, but that they are not allowed to read it if they don’t pay. So in this world, people are morally expected to follow the wish of the content creator in order to make a more efficient economy possible (i.e., one where enforcement costs are not necessary). In real world, something similar exists, for example the “please support me” of people writing a substack (or the usual pop-up on wikipedia or here: https://taz.de/-Nachrichten-im-Ukraine-Krieg-/!5892878/)
You got a few general answers already, but they talk about the hypothetical notion of bypassing paywalls, rather than about what a “bypass paywalls” addon actually does in the real world.
Newspaper websites want to have their cake and eat it, too: They simultaneously want their content to be available for free (so they e.g. get indexed in search engines and shared widely), and to then get people to pay for it. They do that by e.g. giving you a limited number of unrestricted articles to read per month, or by restricting all content except when it’s referred (i.e. linked) from specific other websites, or by making it a hassle to read unless you pay, etc.
The crucial point here is that the content is freely available somehow, and that its restrictions are intentionally somewhat flimsy (because otherwise search engines and people wouldn’t share the articles). That’s why addons can exist which are capable of disabling these restrictions.
Contrast that with paid Substack posts. Substack puts those behind true (hard) paywalls, doesn’t load the content on your local browser, and hence provides no attack surface to any addons intended to bypass them. Newspapers could do the same—but they don’t, because their business model requires non-tight paywalls.
Thanks for the answer but I don’t see how that touches the morality of bypassing paywalls. The morality would be the same if there were no technical paywall at all but the newspaper told people explicitly on page 1 that you are only allowed to read it if you paid, and there were a community of people telling each other “you can just click ‘continue’ and that’s okay”.
In the world you describe, both readers and newspapers would know that that statement was nonsense, and nobody would take it seriously. Or in a world where people did somehow take it seriously, the newspapers would go bankrupt after losing all their network effects because people wouldn’t encounter articles from search engines or word of mouth.
That’s my whole point. The business model of a newspaper crucially depends on there being free ways to read its content, and getting people to pay for it anyway. And once a business model depends on a “paywall” which is in fact a fiction or lie, I do think that bears on the morality of circumventing it. A newspaper can’t call people bad for circumventing a paywall when it could’ve made the paywall secure but intentionally chose not to.
This also bears on the notion of laws and enforceability: If you say “you can’t read this unless you pay”, and then don’t take the slightest steps (as in your original comment) or sufficient steps (as in the case of intentionally soft paywalls) to enforce this rule, then to what extent does this rule even really exist?
I don’t see why that should be the case, given the similarity to exchanging ideas on how to avoid paywalls. In real life, people don’t tell each other that it’s okay to ignore the “please pay”, because people don’t “need” that advice, they just do ignore the “please pay”.
I guess that’s why many newspaper websites paywall their articles nowadays.
Sorry, I don’t understand they point. The existence of the paywall clearly signals to people that the newspaper does not want them to read the content for free, whether or not the newspaper also decides to make it technically possible to read it such that indexing works etc.
In my example, the newspaper did not tell people that they can’t read it if they did not pay, but that they are not allowed to read it if they don’t pay. So in this world, people are morally expected to follow the wish of the content creator in order to make a more efficient economy possible (i.e., one where enforcement costs are not necessary). In real world, something similar exists, for example the “please support me” of people writing a substack (or the usual pop-up on wikipedia or here: https://taz.de/-Nachrichten-im-Ukraine-Krieg-/!5892878/)