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At least they’re up front about the pay wall in the first paragraph.
Now should I start commenting? Because it will take less time to sort through the trolling unenlightened and fake Rx pitches…
Found the Mark Cuban sock.
I'm not seeing a paywall. As I read that first paragraph, you can still read the articles for free. You'll just have to (continue to) tolerate the ads and you'll lose (someday) commenting privileges. I'm not thriilled with that plan but that doesn't count as a paywall. What are you seeing that I missed?
“If you donate $50 or more you should be seeing…”
Ok, let’s call it paywall light.
I’m not seeing a paywall.
Why would a propaganda site for the crony capitalist policies of progressive billionaires have a paywall?
Bingo. Reason lost its libertarian character when it sold out to Soros. If commenting becomes available only to those who pay, I'm out of here.
By the way, is the Volokh Conspiracy part of the site included in the restrictions?
I guess I will have to become Longedtobefree?
Happy to sign up. I'd much rather pay a modest fee than deal with ads. I especially like knowing that my money goes to you directly, and doesn't have to be split with ad networks like google. Those guys can go pound sand.
What ads? My browser must be broken...
Ad blocker is your friend.
I like the ad-free thing (although I already use an ad blocker) but I do hope allowing comments isn't just "for the time being" and even then it stagnates the commentariat for new readers (except for those who pay)
"We are modifying our agreement. Pray we do not modify it any further."
Yeah, I was down for the ad free thing and was even considering paying up. It would be nice to see Reason without ads even on my phone, but the whole reason I’ve stuck with Reason for so many years is for the comments section. Without a fresh supply of new commenters the comments section won’t be worth much for long.
Edit: Just thought about it further. Reason should make the extra nifty features of comments the paywall thing if they really want to monetize their comments section. Edit, Flag Comments, Mute Users. Drop that stuff behind a paywall. It's valuable enough to commenters many will pony up for it, but it won't gut the whole reason someone would be willing to pay for comments in the first place.
Yeppers, if I have to pay to comment, goodbye. Not only do I not want to pay to comment, I don't want to read only paid comments, and the articles themselves have drifted so far from liberty that they are mostly worthless except as they generate comments.
I've seen MANY hard-core authoritarians here TRASH Reason writers (with blatant LIES and strawmen) over the years, and BRAG about the fact that they'll never send Reason a DIME! (I've taken the hardcopy mag for many years.) I will be GLAD to see the skin-flint authoritarian commenters go AWAY and go pound sand!!!
aye
Charging for commenting will drive away some commentors - but it also might drive away all the spambots. I have mixed feelings about that part.
I, not a fan of putting money in Reasom’s coffers. As they are boosters for many of much of the left. Including the current administration.
Relax. There are millions of publications eager to publish girl-bullier glossolalia, threats, election moaning, WHINING over idiotic fads and the total malicious persecution of Righteous and Godly incels and wankers. In fact, there are asylum applications you can fill out and get help moving to someplace people are stoned to death for insufficient mystical zeal.
What, no Comstock reference?
His dementia has advanced.
I like the idea only in terms of shutting down spambots and duplicate accounts. This is one hell of a move to eliminate any use for the site. Kicking commenters unless they pay. Paywalling content. Planning to shut down comments on future articles. It's so stupid that they're doing this while the content produced has absolutely gone to the shitter.
KMW really has killed Reason.
I’m not inclined to pay them.
As a past commenter you have been granted commenting privileges on a temporary basis. To ensure your continued ability to comment and enjoy numerous additional benefits, subscribe to Reason Plus now.
Eat shit Reason. I'm not giving you a dollar. All your "numerous additional benefits" are just things we already get for free and locking commenting behind a paywall is just a way to pretend that no one "wants" to comment so you can kill the whole thing.
This is the one thing I think they should walk back. Everything else is fine.
Dollars to donuts this is meat of the "change request" and the rest is potatoes and parsley.
You won't be missed.
*waves*
Your circle jerk will be getting smaller.
Naw, your mom had me invite more people. She's a champ!
And you're a ham.
шинка, thank you, agreed!!!
I suspect this will get rid of the spambots and drive by trolls. So, hasta la vista baby.
I suspect this will get rid of the spambots and drive by trolls.
No. You'll pay. Like the good little slave that you are.
So by paying for a service you become a slave...
That sounds like some serious Marxist Dialectic there. I will need a lot of "since this is equal to that" leading to "then you see paying your way is equal to slavery in the Capitalist Peasant Oppressing nations of the world."
You'll pay because you do what you're told, and if your masters say that now you have to PAY them for creating content for them, you will.
I won't pay because I don't pay people to be allowed to provide them s service.
I'm gonna MISS this whining wanker!
Pick me! Pick me!
Does that count as a recent comment?
"Commenting privileges now require a subscription to Reason Plus."
LOL
I wonder if Charles Koch's employees are preparing to endorse Biden again. And this is how they prevent the riffraff from mocking them.
#StrategicallyAndReluctantly
Pretty much. Snowflakes the lot of them.
This might be partially my fault. I’ve made a big stink about ENB not being quick about getting her sandwiches made for us.
Reason: Commenting privileges now require a subscription to Reason Plus.
“Random Forum Person”: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP! HELP! I’m being repressed! Section 230! Section 230! My 1A!
Reason: Bloody peasant!
“Random Forum Person”: Oh, what a give away! Did you here that, did you here that, eh? That’s what I’m on about — did you see him repressing me, you saw it didn’t you?
Yeah, that's pretty much what these whiney bastards sound like. The idea that somehow they have a right (Constitutional or GAWD given) to post here without supporting the site financially is pretty telling. A bunch of damned Marxists I think. Demanding that they be given things for free.
Let me say this will kill the site. The articles aren't worth the paper they're printed on (digital version) and the comments and participation is the only thing that brings people back. If they are tired of being mocked they should stop being leftists working at a libertarian (supposedly) publication or get better arguments than Salon.
Getting rid of the spambots is good but the ads are fine so they're really not offering anything of value when the alternative is to walk from one more Leftist publication.
Yes, Reason, you will rue the day you stopped the ability of every random putz on the internet to comment on your articles!
...
Well go on! Start ruing!!
Is "Rue the day" a Cajun saying meaning "Your ass is Gravy Train"?
🙂
😉
“Random Forum Person”: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system!
"Random Forum Person": the commenting section will become a progressive circle jerk, and nothing of interest will be left on the site.
Another Trumpanzee circle wanker relegated back to the QueeroSledge gay-baiting girl-bulliers club. Byyyye!
I criticize Trump and his dead-enders all the time, grandpa.
But have fun paying for the privilege of regurgitating
HEY GUYS DID YOU KNOW THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY PLATFORM OF THE EARLY 1970S LED DIRECTLY TO THE ROE V WADE DECISION
for the 10 billionth time.
"I criticize Trump and his dead-enders all the time, grandpa..."
Like all TDS-addled shit-piles.
Whatever. I think you need some grey box time.
Let the peasants eat cake!
Fuck KATHERINE MANGU-WARD.
Fuck the lot of them. Their posts aren't worth reading. And now they expect me to pay for the privilege of telling them how much they suck? I don't think so.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. Maybe they just got sick of freeloaders trying to tell them how to do their job. Maybe they got sick of the conservatives playing at being libertarian mooching a free lunch. Whatever, you won't be missed.
Yeah, everyone that points out there flaws is a conservative. Massive fucking eyeroll.
I've wanted to do that for 16 years or so now.
I will decline that ‘generous’ offer………
WSJ used to have free-to-sign-up commenting, I spent a lot of time there, sitting on WSJ pages reading comments, posting comments, but sitting on their pages, where the ads are. The comments tended to be far more educational and/or entertaining than anything on the actual WSJ site.
They closed commenting to all but paid subscribers. Now I glance at WSJ site front page once per day, just to read the headlines to see if there's anything noteworthy I might want to look up elsewhere.
Start locking up Reason comments similarly, well, buh-bye. So long and thanks for all the fish.
Reason has made it clear for a while that they're ashamed of the comments section. So it's no surprise they're hobbling it.
It does get them a lot of page views. I wonder how much of the site traffic is for the comment section. I really have no idea.
I doubt it's a lot if they're paywalling it.
Implying they only make sound business decisions.
I suspect Reason is largely funded by a few big donors.
They’re now a tentacle of the Kochtopus. A very small tentacle.
Very few nightclubs let gangs of impecunious semiliterate Trumpanzee ordure-flingers in twice. There is by now a parallel section of 100% Republican Jesus-freak wankers who ban everyone but each other. Why host a Klavern?
Oh it's a garbage dump. I regularly play in the comments on other websites, but not here. What we have is a tragedy of the commons, with a handful of people who don't pay but gum up the conversation.
I'm a fan of paywalls. Maybe I can eventually even play in the comments here? Usually I don't even bother to look.
Who the hell are you?
Reason announces this lefty garbage and all of a sudden a bunch of names appear trumpeting about what a great idea it is.
I've been commenting here since before STEVE SMITH first bellowed and I've never seen any of you before.
Start locking up Reason comments similarly, well, buh-bye. So long and thanks for all the fish.
No, no. Those forums are full of vibrant discourse and their publishers are flourishing because we still have section 230, without which those comments sections would been filled with trolls and shut down over liability concerns long ago!
The simultaneous progressive lock down of forums, defense of S230, and layoff death of legacy media couldn't possibly in any way related.
Gonna be interesting when Bidenflation boosts the cost of a comment subscription to $230.
Comments are the only reason I come here anymore. It's a quicker way to learn a lot of news and share ideas as well as mock the stupidity of the writers here. I've abandoned reading a lot of news sites because they eliminated or paywalled comments.
Fuck em
Same.
The articles have been in decline over the years. The only reason to come is because once in a while I want to vent, and it's the only comment board where you can still say Pigfucker in front of Jesus.
But they rarely do any actual journalism. It's just opinion pieces, and most of them are... well they're bad. High school essay levels of logic or blatantly rehashing the same unsupportable tropes. Just look at literally everything Fiona ever wrote as exhibit one.
Who pays for shit like that?
Pay to comment, i.e. another 'free speech, open debate zone' bites the dust in favor of propaganda. Adios, and vaya con Dios.
If you aren't paying for a product YOU are the product. What, you want a free lunch too? It's not that much and it keeps the spambots out.
Yep, you will own nothing...
If you aren’t paying for a product YOU are the product.
I don't have a problem paying for a good commenting section.
I do have a problem with subsidizing a bunch of crony capitalist statists who hate my guts as part of that payment.
If you’re off of the Comments, you are neither a product-buyer nor a product.
I would gladly pay to comment if Reason were the magazine it once was. While it isn’t slavery for them to ask for subscription while forsaking Libertarianism, it is suckery. It’ll probably be Glibertarians or another Forum for me.
Bye bye, and DOOOO cry! Better yet, bathe in gasoline and light up a legal Tareyton!
Well, that was painless. $25 a year is far cheaper than what I pay for Audible. If you can't find $25 I can't feel sorry for you.
Hopefully the loudest haters will refuse to pony up.
Amen! If there IS truly a Government Almighty... Or at least a Unicorn, Santa Clause, or an Easter Bunny... That is EXACTLY what will happen!!! JesseBahnFarter-Fuhrer, Moose-Mammary, R Mack Who Talks and Snorts Smack, etc., will be GONE!!!
But not missed... except possibly by untrained police snipers or women's clinic security guards. But one has the right to hope.
Since the moot lewser and black flag buttons were added, there has been a logarithmic decay in the number of nazi shaisstposters, snake jugglers and girl-bullying baby-savers with guns. As the LP goes down the faith-based bigotry toilet, Reason is rolling out welcome replacement libertarian resources. Good show!
"Decay in the number of Nazi shaissposters"??? Obviously, you've never seen Herr Misek and your dementia is complete.
Reason deserves you and SQRLSY both!
Hank, YOU are the Nazi. Albeit a senile, gibbering nazi.
If you can’t find $25 I can’t feel sorry for you.
I can. In fact, I did.
And donated it to a site that values free minds, markets, and speech.
I don't give money to leftists. You steal enough from me as it is.
"And donated it to a site that values free minds, markets, and speech."
Help a brother out; what site where?
The site that spawned when Quillette pulled this stunt.
Well, it's grey box time for you. Enjoy.
Hahahaha.
NOW you grey box me?
And leave yourself vulnerable to having someone talk all over you while you can't talk back?
Idiot.
Can you find $25 in value from the articles here? If you can't how is that a value proposition? Well, they've still got daddy Koch's dick to suck so they'll be fine for a hot minute.
Exactly. Amd beyond the value proposition, I don’t like putting money into the pockets of leftists. If anything, people like Boehm, ENB, etc. should be paying US for what they have done.
Here's what I see on my Profile page:
========
SUBSCRIPTION
Congratulations! You have an active digital subscription.
Read the latest issue
Expiration date: 01-15-2026
Reason Print Edition
Expiration: 12-01-2024
Receiving service: Print Subscription
Reason Plus
Expiration: 10-01-2024
Receiving service: Digital Subscription
=====
Am I wrong to be confused by the three different expiration dates?
Nice but can you fix the flag button so it isn't in the middle of my thumbs path or allow me un flag, like the mute.
Shit i take that back, tried it above and it is fixed. Good work Reason.
So whackpuppets CAN learn after all?
You sure haven’t Hank.
Flag comment now has a safety? Wonderful.!
If you're not intelligent enough to understand that this is a way for the ever leftward slinking Reason to finally get rid of the bastards ruining their echo chamber, then by all means pay. You belong here.
There are better places to go that understand that you can't charge for free speech and free minds.
I will keep my claws sunk in until I am removed.
I wonder if glibs will spike?
Sorry. Hard no. The money is not an issue at all.
About half the time, maybe more, the comments are better than the article. I don't comment often but I come here for the debate in the comments section.
I can log in using a fake account to comment but credit card transactions to conservative new sites will get me put on a list and my family murdered.
IMO this is a honeytrap.
What conservative news site are you talking about?
Fox did the same. Townhall does the same.
Darn, I liked the comment better when I thought it was a jab at Reason sucking up to leftists only to turn around and whine when they're blacklisted and regarded as dangerous, right-wing, libertarian propaganda by the same people they suck up to.
The way I see it, Fox, Townhall, The Federalist, and Reason are all sucking up to the leftist surveillance community and collecting data to fill future gulags.
If what they had to say could make a difference, you and I would never be permitted to see it. So all that we do see from them is propaganda designed to get our names on a list.
These media companies, will happily feed all of us to the gas chambers in an effort to be the last in line or maybe get a cushioned seat on the cattle car.
Ever see the old Soros interview? That's who these people are.
conservative new sites
[Trying not to LOL at a rifle butt to the gut of a website about to be put against the wall and shot by their own comrades.]
Anonymous wankpuppets sense a danger to shaisstposting mystical glossolalia. Poooor bAAAybeez!
I'm glad you are starting to reflect on your own behavior.
The Comments can suck too, but when the Comments weren’t paywalled, at least actual sane voices for Libertarianism and Reason (the faculty) have a chance to speak without having to support their own destroyers. I certainly got a kick out of refuting and telling our resident Totalitarians Tony, Mtrueman, Rev. Artie, Herr Misek, Nardz, and Goldie to all Fuck Off!
I will support John Stossel’s content, Remy’s music, the Bragg’s and John Carter’s videos, and Peter Bagge’s comics separate from Reason and I will still admire and supoort the works of Liz Wolfe, Virginia Postrel, Cathy Young, Ilya Somin and other great authors and creators on other mediums. All the rest is too tainted to care about!
It’s the end of Reason Magzine as we know it…but I’ll be fine.
So this is the funeral march of the comments? Maybe laursen will return once all the mean girls have been purged.
I’m sure he would love a massive progtard circle jerk. It’s not quite same as his dream fantasy where he gets pegged by ENB, but it’s still something.
Capitalism at it's best.
Reason puts up a paywall, 'customers' leave.
Win-win.
This is another example of how Katherine articles are harbingers of happiness and good cheer! Icing on the cake is that the klansmen, white terror mob, MAGAts, girl-bulliers and prohibitionist infiltraitors I mooted stayed moot. Thanks, Reason!
Hey, I voted for Trump twice and will do so again. I paid my 25 bucks. I am staying around.
Instead of requiring a donation to comment, you could just use moderators. But good moderators. Can always tell when there's bad moderators because then they end up policing ideologies. It's why /r/libertarian is a far right fringe cult now.
Can always tell when there’s bad moderators because then they end up policing ideologies.
Right. Can't have moderators who would allow right-fringe cult messaging like this be discussed internally to the libertarian party, let alone out into the wider populace.
I can't think of a single good reason why libertarians would be talking about their own candidates that they're putting on the ballot. They should just continue to focus on how well the economy is doing and the fact that Alabaman Nationalist Christian Conservatives are firebombing IVF clinics across the country.
Libertarians are hated because girl-bulliers and anarcho-fascists infiltrated to mangle the platform and make a small, mean, angry, bigoted GOP2.0
Basically it's the same thing Alabama Wallace Dixiecrats did to the Dems after JFK was safely out of the way. The original platform is the real thing. Accept no substitutskys.
You know, I say this with all the love in the world. Many of the decafinated brands now have all the full flavor you've become accustomed to.
Hahahahahahahahaha
Are you fucking serious? r/libertarian was absorbed into the leftist hive mind 8 fucking years ago.
So existing customers will get a smaller package of benefits eh? This is the very definition of shrinkflation. Elizabeth Warren was right!
But they put a “+” after it!
Even just as a creative/original ad scheme this is lame.
Hulu, then Hulu+… Paramount, then Paramount+… AMC, then AMC+… Disney, then Disney+…
What’s next? Reason pimping some pro-football player with the last name Rets or Reats or Reas in their own, lame, Reasonhaslivesports commercial?
Good luck to the writers at “libertarian CNN+".
Apparently, we've moved on from putting an "i" in front of everything.
A majority of the most egregious trolls only do so because it is free. It takes a rare dedication to be willing to pay to hate-spew in the comments.
Besides, it should defeat the cost-benefit all the spam bots.
That's why I felt a little sad about commenters grandfathered in. I thought, "Oh, so the same ones who currently dominate will continue to do so."
Don't worry your fragile sensibilities, they're going to phase out the grandfathered commenters who don't pay before too long.
As an aside. It should be interesting to check in after that time. My fear is the comments section will be filled with the usual nutters like LIBertrans, Sqrsly, and Sevo, and leftist whiners.
Come back in a year or two. This place is going to be a ghost town. You'll have about three guys who comment religiously and a couple randos who never show up again after one or two comments.
Don't like turd being called on his lies I see. Fuck off and die, asshole.
I am unclear if "reading" comments will be locked behind a subscription. I know many sires not only lock making comments, but also reading comments.
During covid my local paper turned off comments completely, because the comments did not in anyway fit the narrative.
YAY!! Happy to pay.
+1
Good luck with that.
Oh well, fun while it lasted
I subscribed to Reason for a decade.
Hell will freeze over before I give you another cent.
Ditto. Same with Cato.
Including the time I donated to Reason and my card # got swiped from whatever 3rd party they were using. Bought someone shoes in Chicago.
Yes, Cato isn't getting a dime anymore either.
As an immigrant, I find Cato's advocacy for flooding the US with hundreds of millions of people absolutely reprehensible. And that is only one of the many statist, crony capitalist, and authoritarian positions they are taking.
Thank you for emulating CNN+, you will not be missed. You've turned into Leftist propagandists and looking to charge in that oversaturated market doesn't sound like a sound business strategy, but anything to keep from a second of self-reflection or accountability I guess.
Echo chambers are boring.
I really, really hope that this will at least cause some of the uncivil commenters on this site to go spew somewhere else.
You're full of shit.
You need some spiritualism in your life. Go attend some LDS services.