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Not at all. There are many legal ways to receive free copies of newspapers. No one is going to come beat me up just because I didn’t read all the ads.

Denying access to a site is hardly like beating one up for not reading newspaper ads. It's more like they'd refuse to give you another edition of the paper on your next visit, or insisted you pay for the paper instead.

As genocidicbunny points out all the way up in the thread, if the server responds with 402 Payment Required, I'll honor it and either pay or go elsewhere. If it responds 200 OK and sends me the content - I'll use the content however I want, end of story.

Not even close. I get one dumped on my yard twice a week that I don't even want, and can't stop even after calling their office. I am not the customer.

A newsstand may not give me a paper in the first place without me paying first, but if one is in my possession, then it's mine to use incorrectly.

The web site has the option to not put it's content out where the public can see it anonymously.

What the sibling said, plus: There are plenty of free newspapers, and even magazines. All of this applies to them as well.

And websites are free to put up a paywall in front of the content to get me to pay for it.