“t’s funny you mention cost because MOST news sites have implemented the cheapest, laziest paywall technology - which reflects their cheap/lazy mindset but also their arrogance.”
i think a lot of these outlets want the leakage because otherwise if they were 100% behind 100% effective paywalls, then they’d be so cut off from the rest of the world they’d simply shrivel up and die because their product is so useless or redundant that very few are willing to pay for it and even fewer advertisers are willing to pay to have their ads 100% behind effective paywalls
only a couple of outlets like the WSJ can afford to cut themselves off completely except for paying customers, and quite frankly i think the WSJ is gonna eventually find out that that model isn’t sustainable ...
I agree about feigning resistance to leakage but so many of these rags are McClathy, Gannett and other top-down outlets - they don’t even get a say in what technology is implemented (poorly or otherwise).
The Gannett web template (USA Today, et al) is nigh-on unusable and always has been yet they stick with it.