[martingxx]

Although I am fortunate enough to be able to afford to subscribe to almost anything I might want to read, I don't like the idea of paywalls in general.

I believe they exclude the less fortunate from access to important resources, so I refuse to give my money to companies that use paywalls, because I see that as rewarding bad behaviour.

Instead, I always pay for sites I find valuable that don't have paywalls (e.g., guardian.co.uk)

I realise this isn't the same view that everyone has, which is fine. Vote with your money.

[OrvalWintermute]

> I believe they exclude the less fortunate from access to important resources, so I refuse to give my money to companies that use paywalls, because I see that as rewarding bad behaviour.

I agree with what you wrote but I think it is an understatement.

The good fortune of spending an amount of years in a great coastal community with an excellent library system; those primarily physical assets I used as a child are now mainly digitized.

Where does that leave much of the world that cannot afford these exploitative paywalls?

This is truly a diversity & inclusion issue about providing the same 100 steps forward many of us were fortunate to receive, to everyone. Our tax dollars already funded much of it anyways.

We cannot permit the unjust enrichment of paywall tyranny!

[xdfgh1112]

Paywalls seem to work but at the cost of restricting access to a large group of people. It is evident from sites like Eurogamer, Wikipedia and The Guardian that a more patreon-like "supporter" model can work just as well without annoying people.

[rat9988]

Before paywalls newspapers tried free access for all and it didn't work. People always find a reason to justify why they don't want to pay.

[martingxx]

For some newspapers it _is_ working, so clearly it can work.

If some newspapers haven't figured out how to make open access work, but that's a problem with those newspapers, not with open access.