I've been donating to the news site Vox for a while now, and all their content has so far been free. I felt kinda bad about blocking the ads on their site and fast-forwarding through all the ad breaks in their podcasts. So in the spirit of actually supporting something I like, I started chipping in a few bucks a month.
But recently, they've started putting some of their articles behind a paywall. Since I was already donating, I automatically have access. But for some reason, I feel like I don't wanna pay anymore. It's not like it costs me more, but there's just something about dontating to a free site vs paying for exclusive content that doesn't feel the same. Maybe cuz I'm not a fan of paywalls in general, so I don't want to support companies that implement them.
Does that make sense? What would you do? And if you're not a fan of Vox, maybe think of some other free service/content, like videos from a streamer or a software project or something.
I do not think I blame any services or sites for paywalls especially if its part of their financial model to continue operations and providing services.
There are many free services I have the privilege of being able to pay for to support: Proton, StoryGraph, Wikipedia. I used to donate to Pocket but no longer. I want these services to continue and am privileged enough to be able to donate