Post #1079313
2026-04-11 14:52 UTC
Replies (11)
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@MATAK79@stranger.social 2026-04-11 15:26
@cobweb me too. Maybe even more dangerous if a payment.
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@EricLawton@kolektiva.social 2026-04-11 15:34
@cobweb Ceci n'est pas un paywall. @Dynamicallydisabled
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@vex@kolektiva.social 2026-04-11 17:35
@cobweb I always add fake emails like fuck@you.no
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@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social 2026-04-11 17:36
@cobweb Can't pretend it's free while gathering our personal info... Yes an e-mail address is personal info. Darned identifying really... (And inb4, yeah, we can use some disposable throwaway, but the news sites don't like that and try their best to block it. Almost as if it's not actually about stopping bots and etc as they claim. You know, bots that could just gather login tokens and use those.)
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@jank0@sfba.social 2026-04-11 18:12
@cobweb counterpoint: https://www.404media.co/why-404-media-needs-your-email-address/
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@Quasit@kolektiva.social 2026-04-11 20:06
@cobweb Same here. Or I copy the URL and use a bypass.
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@MostlyTato@mstdn.social 2026-04-11 20:14
@cobweb This is really difficult. No-one wants to give out their private info, but news sites are trying to make money and don't want to give away their content for free. Why should they employ an entire newsroom to research and report only to give it away for free? If you don't want to subscribe then you have to pay for advertising or no-one is going to pay for the service and it won't exist. But...I get around this, I don't subscribe or pay, why should I pay when I can get around it?
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@huntingdon@mstdn.social 2026-04-11 20:53
@cobweb Yep. Giving up your phone or e-mail information to a website is more expensive in terms of privacy than paying for a subscription that is otherwise behind a paywall. It's still a paywall. And it's more intrusive.
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@klefstadmyr@social.vivaldi.net 2026-04-11 23:06
@cobweb I just got hit with an article I could only read if I subscribed to their newsletter. Why would I want to subscribe to their newsletter? I'm not generally interested in whatever happens in Manchester, I just wanted to read this one article.
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@nowayeast@mastodon.social 2026-04-11 23:59
@cobweb I always like to enter a clearly false email with curse words that ends with the sites domain. (GoFu**yourselves@newyorktimes.com) It doesn't always work but hey why not try.
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@WanderingBeekeeper@weirder.earth 2026-04-12 00:38
@cobweb if I right click and open the story in a new private window, generally that circumvents the issue. Screw their data intrusion. The news should be readily available