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Would you stop donating to a free service if it started putting up paywalls? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've been donating to the news site Vox for a while now, and all their content has so far been free. I felt kinda bad about blocking the ads on their site and fast-forwarding through all the ad breaks in their podcasts. So in the spirit of actually supporting something I like, I started chipping in a few bucks a month.

But recently, they've started putting some of their articles behind a paywall. Since I was already donating, I automatically have access. But for some reason, I feel like I don't wanna pay anymore. It's not like it costs me more, but there's just something about dontating to a free site vs paying for exclusive content that doesn't feel the same. Maybe cuz I'm not a fan of paywalls in general, so I don't want to support companies that implement them.

Does that make sense? What would you do? And if you're not a fan of Vox, maybe think of some other free service/content, like videos from a streamer or a software project or something.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I grew up on an internet that was made by and for people who wanted you to visit their site.

If you offer something for free, become popular, then turn it into a paid service, I will no longer use it.

If i had enough money that i didn't notice everything that is behind a pay wall would care a lot less. But I've never been in that position from the day i was born and it looks like ill die without ever knowing what that is like so I'm certainly biased.

That being said i think paywalls can be redone so that everyone wins.

If you have a paywall that only blocks new content until x minutes/hours/days etc have elapsed then I think that's a good way to monetize something when costs endanger the existence of the thing