Why do certain companies keep paid content "accessible" through third party sites or addons? (programming.dev)

submitted 4 months ago by ICastFist@programming.dev to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Most major news sites, as well as some other sites of reading content like Medium, have a paywall for certain articles, but those are easily defeated by people who bother to search the internet.

As I suspect said companies are aware of that, and they don't react to properly protect their paid stuff, what do they expect to gain?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] eya@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 4 months ago

The people bypassing the paywall aren't going to pay in the first place, no point in wasting resources on it.

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 4 points 4 months ago

Bandwidth isn't free, though I guess the amount of bypassers register as a cost in dimes in that regard

[-] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago

At scale, it’s effectively free.

[-] rbn@sopuli.xyz 4 points 4 months ago

If you use a middleman such as archive.is it's not their bandwidth anymore but the middleman's. In most cases these services don't act as a proxy but store a backup of the article on their servers. Not sure if that's always the case though.

this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2024

48 points (98.0% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26684 readers

1500 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics.

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.