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.
Journalism isn’t free. For a different type of service, I would reconsider if I wanted to continue supporting them. But good journalism is disappearing, so I think if you’re in a position to help keep it going, you should.