Let me start this post with a little slice of life story. As I was checking what very few social media accounts I maintain (by which I mean read), I saw a story making the rounds that Amazon was going to start showing tariff pricing on their website in response to Trump’s decree. When I first saw this being discussed, there was some laughter for two reasons. One is because I’ve talked about in other posts on this very site that Jeff Bezos, in my unprofessional opinion, is a sociopath who is absolutely terrified of the President. As a result, there is no way he’s going to do anything that would dare sever his lips being attached to whatever surface on the President’s body was available. The other reason was I thought this was probably someone from the right wing reading The Onion again, and thinking it was an actual news story. (You should read The Onion, though.)
But the more I scrolled, the more I saw this topic still being discussed like a real news story. So I was prepared to have my mind slightly changed on my original post about Bezos. I then went to a search engine to look up a legitimate news site to confirm or deny this story. As I scrolled down the first page of the results clicking links (at least from news outlets I didn’t think were a joke), I ran into the same thing repeatedly.
A paywall prompt.
Unless I was prepared to subscribe to absolutely any of these sites, I wasn’t going to get past the first paragraph of their story about this whole kerfuffle. I would later learn that I was right, and Amazon is feckless and would never do anything of the sort. Well that was a relief, because I wasn’t looking forward to writing the “I was wrong” follow up to that original post. But then it got me to thinking about this a bit more, because this is something that I (and no doubt many others) run into time and again with news sites from every stripe.
That’s where that title comes in at the top of this post. These paywalls are costing us a lot more than whatever sum that these sites want you and I to pay. I am of the firm belief that legitimate news should be free to read. I am of the belief that news that can potentially change my life as I know it or the country I live in should not be behind a paywall. I don’t mean all news sites, just the ones that are keeping us informed on what our government is or isn’t doing.
Do you know how much bullshit news sites cost for you to read? Not a dime. That’s free, and you can read all you want. Then those people will return to that site again and again, likely reading a lot of things that aren’t true because the truth isn’t free. Then it spirals from there, and we end up with a vast majority of people who believe what these free sites tell them and make decisions that affect your life and mine during elections.
I’m not trying to pin the ills of the world on the news sites entirely. I realize fully that there are people out there who will believe anything, and are just looking to be told what to think. But for those who can still be reached and those who are starting to question things, they are the ones I’m referring to here. Every paywall prompt they hit when they visit major news outlets like the Washington Post or the New York Times just sends them looking elsewhere to get information. It sends them to places that aren’t going to be honest with them, and will be there to serve a different purpose. (Not to say the Post and Times are unicorns, mind you. Far from it.)
There has to be another way for these sites to operate. There has to be anoher way for these sites to make sure when people look for news, they can reach it freely without having to fish out their debit card. I’m not saying that the people who work for these sites don’t deserve to be paid. Of course, they should. Only a fool would say otherwise. What I am saying is that there has to be a way for important news to be disseminated to inform the public on events that can potentially shape their lives and future.
As for the other sites? I don’t care. Put them behind a paywall all you want. Tech sites? Go right ahead. I remember clicking over on an article by David Pierce for The Verge, and I almost never go there, because their editor-in-chief is not someone I take seriously. (May be another blog post one day.) They wanted me to pay for a story about his thoughts on the new M4 MacBook Air. There was much eye rolling. But that’s fine. I don’t mind past the second it took me to close the tab. Gaming sites? Have at it. But life changing news and world events that will shape the future, we need to make sure people get the full disclosure on that whether they can afford the site’s subscription or not.
The war on facts and legitimate information is raging at a fever pitch, and this isn’t the time for gatekeeping. The stakes are too high.
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