News website paywalls

Question for folks.  It's very easy to bypass paywalls on news sites.  Do people find this an ethical dilemma?  Would you do it?  Is it stealing?  I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this.

My thoughts:

If you couldn’t get through the firewall what would you do? Buy a subscription so you could read the articles, or pass?

If you would pass then you are hurting no one by reading. But if you would buy it if you couldn’t get through, then it makes sense to support the publication.

So, I'm deeply conflicted.

On the one hand, I'll go to my death asserting that property rights are fundamentally different than intellectual property rights -- to the point that I essentially don't believe in intellectual property rights. If I take your loaf of bread, you don't have a loaf of bread. If I "take" (a copy of) your movie/book/news article I have essentially just looked at a thing you made -- you still have it.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that the advent of the Internet coupled with the collapse of the Fairness Doctrine has resulted in the end of news, and perhaps society (but the jury is still out). Publishers need to pay the bills and I really, really wish they were paying serious journalists.

I pay for the local paper. Until recently, for years, I paid for a Washington Post electronic subscription but I've moved that money over to a paid GroundNews account. Back in the day when Newsweek was a reputable journalistic magazine, we took it in paper format. And I donate to NPR. But I also feel free to rat-fuck paywalls whenever I can. So it's a little of column A and a little of column B for me.

I also use the calculus Maieshe outlines for when to buy vs. "find" software and media.

Sorry, what society?

Personally I don’t read the news that often—I don’t feel the need to have that circulating in my head even if it’s supposedly important—often things get down to me by what people around me are saying.

It’s interesting how rumors get around. I heard that Trump made it so people had to use their birth names to vote, thus married women who changed their names would have to change them back first, implying a moderate breach of the nineteenth amendment. Then I looked it up and it wasn’t exactly the truth. But it might be implied by the apparent truth, which is a stricter voting requirement supposed to be aimed at reducing non-citizen voting. Things are so convoluted. But that’s a whole different topic.

I'm torn as well.  On the one hand, I feel kind of like Maieshe said.  I wouldn't buy a subscription to read the article.  Therefore, if I read it, I'm not costing them anything.  On the other hand, I know I may just be justifying the behavior.  There is a valid argument that reading it without paying is either stealing or it isn't, rather than it's not stealing if x, but it's stealing if Y, depending on your personal ethics.  Is it not stealing if I steal a loaf of bread because my family is starving, but it's stealing if I steal a TV because I don't want to pay for it?

Christopher makes an interesting point as well.  Are property rights different, or more or less valid than intellectual property rights?  I'm not sure.  

There was a time when I would download books, music, or software, and "trial" it.  I did it without the seller's permission, but I was meticulous about then paying for it if I felt it was worthwhile.  I don't do it now.  Now if I want access to someone's material, I purchase it and take my chances.  Or, I do what I did with Matt Walker when I was interested in his stoves.  I sent him an email and asked if he would send me one page of his instructions so I could get a feel for what they were like and if I could understand them.  He graciously agreed and sent me a page.  I read it over and purchased his plans.  That seems like a win/win to me, and it works great in a smaller community like this.  It probably wouldn't work as well if I wrote Stephen King and asked him to send me a page of his new book.

Christopher Weeks wrote:So, I'm deeply conflicted.

On the one hand, I'll go to my death asserting the property rights are fundamentally different than intellectual property rights -- to the point that I essentially don't believe in intellectual property rights. If I take your loaf of bread, you don't have a loaf of bread. If I "take" (a copy of) your movie/book/news article I have essentially just looked at a thing you made -- you still have it.
[snip]

< a bit of a rambling rant incoming>

I completely understand Christopher's dilemma, but I take it from a different angle.  News (movies, music, etc.) need our attention as much as they need our money, in exchange we get whatever information (or rumors, or clickbait) they're offering.  The paywall isn't their only source of revenue, so is your attention (for ads, and tracking data and such).

If they have a paywall, I don't read it or even engage with them.  There are plenty of news aggregators that will show other outlets' news stories for the same thing.  Ground News is a personal favorite, but there are buckets.  Also, if I actually want to know some news, I want to see multiple angles on the same item.  It makes it harder to get sucked into the fearmogering when you see how different the spins are.

Also, if a 'news item' is in exactly one source, I *strongly* doubt it's news.  News is too much of an echo chamber nowadays for that to really happen.

I do pay for subscriptions for any outlet I directly value and want to support (right now that's only Ground News and The Economist (because I'm a numbers and systems modeling nerd)).  I tend to support other creators, investigators, etc. directly through other means.

</rant>