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Comment by mrcharles | Hacker News Reader

Given the NYT's war with people who want to read articles without signing up for an account, this wouldn't surprise me.

But until they do it, I can still google the base URL of an article and click from google, circumventing the need to log in.

It was so much easier when the article title was on the login page, I could just select it in chrome, google from right click menu, and click on the top link.

Ah well, I expect that will continue to work even if they try for a pay wall. I can't imagine that they don't see google referrals as one of their primary sources of traffic. Otherwise they wouldn't have implemented the google click exception in the first place.

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Help me understand, as this escapes me to this day... why is it no trouble at all to copy an article title, google it, and click on that link, and then a major PITA to register an account, sign in, check "remember me" and never deal with it again?

This sort of thing is what throwaway accounts were made for.

It's a protest against required logins. Even making a throwaway account tells them that what they are doing is okay. Whereas I do not count towards their "registered account" statistics, but I do count towards "unique user who isn't and doesn't register."

I would have to imagine it's an exception that makes their policies look asinine.

Think about it through the typical workflow: googling an article for research, and finding a link to NYTimes, and reading it, versus something similar to hitting a research paywall, where there's an abstract and big "pay" button that might as well say Eff You. Then, if the user leaves, there's no ill-will (they aren't coming back anyway); but if they browse around, they get the first one free then a message to sign up. The OP is thinking of the hack as the standard interaction.

Khoi Vinh ain't no fool.

Some of us are a little more concerned about privacy to never clear our cookies or cache. If they were smart they would use the same technology HN uses to allow me to post with my Google account, circumventing login completely. I've been an active NYTimes reader my whole life, but I'm not going to make an account when I can read the same article mirrored somewhere else. Which is exactly what will happen when they attempt a pay wall.

They generate income from advertisements regardless if you have an account or not.

If users are going to that length to circumvent the login, that should tell you something about how much of a PITA the process is in their minds.

All they want to do is read the article and it shows that the NYTimes process is just not working. I actually have a login to NYTimes, but I can't remember it since I don't read them regularly ... so if I go to their site and get greeted with a login screen and whatever computer I'm on doesn't remember my login ... I tap out and go do something else.

Why they can't sit down and seriously think about ways to change that instead of going with tried and tired methods never ceases to amaze me.

I mean its 2011 and we're still talking about paywalls for goodness sake ... I thought those failed ten years ago?

I clear cookies/cache daily at the very least. After I created my third or fourth nytimes account I realized it's easier for me to use the Google workaround or Bugmenot than to retrieve my username and password every time I wanted to read an article.

I'll just pay the subscription. Their content is exceptional.

Their content is exceptional, no doubt about it. Indeed, I would be more apt to pay for the content than I would be to sign up for an account even though free. If it's free, make it free.

If you open NY Times links in an incognito window, the website won't prompt you to log in. It's easy to do, just right click on the link and select open in incognito window from the menu that comes up. Still annoying, but less annoying than other options.

My suspicion is that they will continue to make it relatively easy to get to the articles for free. Those who go through such elaborate means wouldn't pay for content anyway. It's a form of price discrimination.

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