It’s gotten pretty bad online. I’ll be reading news.google.com and half the articles I click on have paywalls (New York Times, Washington Post). And it’s not just the major pubs; every little podunk paper now seems to want our money.
Along with that, a ton of sites are blocking access if you have an ad blocker. The result is that, compared to just a few years ago, the amount of stuff I can read online without changing my personal browsing policy has significantly diminished.
So what’s my policy?
I am not averse to paying for stuff I appreciate. It’s possible to play on chess.com desktop website/phone app without paying, but I signed up for the diamond (highest-level) subscription because I get enormous entertainment value out of it and people really should pay if they are using it as much as I do. I also keep feeling I should give money to dailykos.com, even though they don’t have a paywall or block ad blockers.
But as for other stuff, I haven’t been sold yet. I don’t really respect the New York Times. I can do without the Washington Post (though I would rather pay for it than the NYT). Thinking that I would pay for (just making this up) The Macon Gazzette because I happen to be interested in one story per year is ridiculous. The same goes for all the websites that oh-so-generously give me a limit of 3 articles or so per month and then start telling me to pay up, subscribe, whatever. Ain’t gonna do it. Will do without.
As has been pointed by many others elsewhere, if one were to sign up for and pay for all the things online that ask for/demand money, that could easily be a significant amount of money per month. I can afford it, but a lot of poor people cannot. Oh well, I guess they don’t get access to information.
Another type of site is one that doesn’t even have an ad-free subscription option but will block your access if you have an ad blocker on. I used to read allmusic.com all the time, but then they started doing that, and I quite completely checked out.–Just looked, and they are no longer blocking ad blockers. Whoops! Guys, guess that wasn’t working for you. Anyhow, I just won’t read sites that do that.
It’s a tiresome situation, and I doubt it’s sustainable.
I get that it’s hard to monetize online. The ad-based publication model worked for a couple centuries, and we haven’t figured out how to replace it. I feel kinda sorry/not sorry for the struggling pubs and websites. This is an era in which everything is commoditized and probably most companies find it hard to get people to give a shit. It’s just hard to make money these days in general. I take an interest in the travails of retail and restaurants and have newsletters coming in my inbox. The struggle is real. Anyhow…
TL;DR: I’m a stubborn bastard, not giving in.
How about you?