What’s the Deal With Paying for Online Articles?
Yes, it’s true. Jose Mier has reached his limit in. By that I mean every time I try to research information on current events, the first listings that appear on Google are usually from newspaper sites. I want to find out about the Bobcat fire or when the state of California thinks it’s going to get off its butt and reopen things, so I invariably end up clicking on link to an article on the Los Angeles Times or even the San Francisco Chronicle.
The first few times you do it everything is great when you’re lulled into a sense of complacency. You get the information you want, you feel good about yourself and you go on your marry way. Then, the next time you try to find information on one of these sites they slap you with a pop-up window saying, “you’ve reached your limit of free articles.” Then they ask you to subscribe, for a fee of course.
I’m not going to pay the fee. I just want my damn information and be done with it. If I want the Los Angeles Times I’ll get it delivered and read it that way. This seems to me like a bait and switch or some other type of scam. If these are the most popular results on Google and as a result the first one to click on when looking for information, you’re going to be sorely disappointed when you find out that you get three free articles and then the door to information is slammed in your face.
Jose Mier Has Some Suggestions for Google
If this is the common practice that I would suggest Google flag these types of listings and let people know that they are potentially subscription sites and that to get information from them on a long-term basis you’ll need to pay money. Well, maybe this is just a ranting of one angry Sun Valley, California resident, but I just want a little bit of information and I don’t feel the need to subscribe to a service for one article every once in a while. I realize that newspapers, especially in today’s highly competitive online environment, are trying to staunch the loss of revenue because less and less people are reading physical newspapers but I just want to make my opinion known.
I probably don’t want to read the articles anyway since they’ll most likely have a slant to them with an opinion different from mine but it would be nice to find the information I’m looking for right away instead of having to be told I need to pay first. Again there should be a warning on these listings.
Okay end of rant. And I still don’t know when California’s going to reopen we’re what the status of the Bobcat fire is.
