Surely it would be better for the environment, at least, to hire one of those GeoGuessr guys
We are forcing you to sign up to read this as a public service.
Their reporting is often based on FOIA requests, which are a public service, so they give free access to those articles without a paywall.
They have been open and transparent that they require a free account to read their free articles because it prevents LLMs from illegally scraping and plagiarizing their original reporting. Logging in to a free account is a small price to pay to ensure these actual journalists continue to produce excellent work.
I appreciate that, and if a fake email works then I’ll happily give them that. But that’s it.
If I need to sign up with a real address, click a verification link, unsubscribe (possibly a few times) and remember what I gave them the next time they put up a login: No.
And if I’m not being “provided” with the story until I submit to a EULA or whatever, it is NOT being “freely provided”.
Hell, we’ll give you this lovely home in a wonderful city for free! Terms and conditions may apply.
Yeah I get that, and your frustration is totally valid, it’s just an insane uphill battle to continue producing original content without some evilcorp swooping in to steal all your shit and then resell it as their own. This is the only “solution” they’ve found to still making enough money to eat. But the extra friction is definitely a bit annoying, and they know that.
Heinen said “My job as a leader in my space is to build the best technology that customers are asking for. It’s not my job to play the ethics game because our elected officials will eventually figure that out. I have full faith in the American people to decide who to elect and what to vote on.”
