NY Times shuts down a paywall bypass in just 68 minutes(thenextweb.com)
thenextweb.com
NY Times shuts down a paywall bypass in just 68 minutes
http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/03/28/ny-times-shuts-down-a-paywall-bypass-in-just-68-minutes/
6 comments
I read the title expecting to read about how their technical team modified the system to stop a bypass from working, not that they contacted someone to get him to stop offering a bypass service.
Yeah, that's not how the NYT rolls. We got around the paywall pretty easily -- getting around the legal wall though... It's a shame, because we really want to work with partners to help them build their businesses. In due time! :-)
Me too - I figured maybe that justified the $40mil price tag or something, if it included a crack team of counterhackers.
Yeah - me too.
I considered a similar idea like this back when the paywalls were first introduced across some of the larger news sites. Simply register 1 account and then funnel all requests through it for free. It did however conflict with my own idea of what should and shouldn't be done, so I never made it.
It might also conflict with the reality that it would be detected trivially and shut down immediately.
A single account the does daily archives of any new articles, and mirrors them for people, would not be easily detected. It would just look like someone browsing all the new articles each day. Spread it across 2 accounts, and have each one just browse half the new articles each.
Not that i'd endorse this sort of idea, hence i'm not making it, just speculating.
Not that i'd endorse this sort of idea, hence i'm not making it, just speculating.
I think that in this prank there is hidden an interesting experiment, which shows alternative ways to create micropayments.
I wonder if you can build a bookmarklet was built it would become less cumbersome to use.
I'm curious too about how the 600 odd people were willing to use micropayments. Turns out it was a stunt/demo for https://www.minno.co/
Now if the Times had some smart person on their staff, they'd call off the hounds and instead sell him content on a wholesale basis. Then let everybody sell NYT stories, just as anyone who wants to can sell for Amazon.
Then let everybody sell NYT stories, just as anyone who wants to can sell for Amazon.
Except the infrastructure for that would probably take 40MM or so to build...
Except the infrastructure for that would probably take 40MM or so to build...
If you are serious about wanting to bypass the paywall, you should probably wait until their entire server admin force isn't hovering over the console and server logs monitoring the launch. Just saying.
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