A serious, non-rhetorical question: Is there a moral difference between “Bypass Paywalls” and a manual with advice for how to steal newspapers from a kiosk?
I don’t necessarily endorse it but the moral argument would go like so: “I’m definitely not going to pay to read that article so me bypassing the paywall is not hurting the newspaper. The marginal cost is zero. Stealing from a kiosk, on the other hand, deprives the newspaper of a sale (and is just obvious plain old stealing).” In other words, “I’m not stealing a newspaper from the kiosk, I’m just breaking in, photocopying it real quick, and putting it right back. No harm no foul!”
A counterargument might be that you’re contributing to demand for paywall-bypassing which does deprive the newspaper of sales, just less directly.
When you steal a newspaper from a kiosk, you are taking paper and ink that do not belong to you. The newspaper is harmed because it now has less paper and ink. When you bypass a paywall, the newspaper still has all the same computers and servers that it had before, it hasn’t lost any physical object.
The actual costs of producing the newspaper are sunk. So the only relevant part would be the opportunity costs of seeling the paper to someone. So for my question you can assume that in the kiosk there are more newspapers than will be sold that day.
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/)
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.
A serious, non-rhetorical question: Is there a moral difference between “Bypass Paywalls” and a manual with advice for how to steal newspapers from a kiosk?
I don’t necessarily endorse it but the moral argument would go like so: “I’m definitely not going to pay to read that article so me bypassing the paywall is not hurting the newspaper. The marginal cost is zero. Stealing from a kiosk, on the other hand, deprives the newspaper of a sale (and is just obvious plain old stealing).” In other words, “I’m not stealing a newspaper from the kiosk, I’m just breaking in, photocopying it real quick, and putting it right back. No harm no foul!”
A counterargument might be that you’re contributing to demand for paywall-bypassing which does deprive the newspaper of sales, just less directly.
When you steal a newspaper from a kiosk, you are taking paper and ink that do not belong to you. The newspaper is harmed because it now has less paper and ink. When you bypass a paywall, the newspaper still has all the same computers and servers that it had before, it hasn’t lost any physical object.
The actual costs of producing the newspaper are sunk. So the only relevant part would be the opportunity costs of seeling the paper to someone. So for my question you can assume that in the kiosk there are more newspapers than will be sold that day.
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/)
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.