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Would you stop donating to a free service if it started putting up paywalls? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 1 month ago by lolola@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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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.

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[–] orcrist@lemm.ee 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think the details matter a lot. If I'm an active contributor to a site and I get a bait and switch, then I'm probably going to leave the site permanently. I try to keep track of what's happening to make that less likely.

If you're setting up a service and you realize it doesn't scale up well, I think you should try to state your roadmap on your site somewhere, so the users can expect changes that might happen. If people go in expecting that you might need to monetize in certain ways, they won't be disappointed when you do. Or rather, they might be slightly disappointed but they'll understand.

[–] Brahvim@lemmy.kde.social 1 points 1 month ago

I find it funny how the internet still rages sometimes.