I made a couple of snarky remarks a few months ago about paywalls (remind me to delete those posts when TOA inevitably goes behind the cash curtain) though it's not clear to me why I tend towards making negative comments about these toll collectors. They support journalism by funding certain aspects of news organizations, which is both important and necessary in the post-newspaper economics faced by these firms, so in that sense I see them as almost a critical feature of a democracy; a free press is vital, I'm told, for our system of government, so I should support anything that protects this institution. It's hard to talk myself into fully embracing this point of view, however, because every time I click on a promising link only to crash into a paywall, I roll my eyes a little bit - a paywall, in one sense, is like gaining access to a new part of the internet, but the problem is that no one complains about there being too little internet; if it were a physical structure, you'd surely be able to see the internet from space. The paywall offers the kind of promise you see at certain buffet restaurants - after you pay for the dinner menu, you learn that those premium desserts still require a small additional charge. My skepticism is based in part on my conviction that there is little behind the paywall, or at least anything necessary (though I won't argue with anyone who contends a dessert is necessary).
There is more to it than just an arrogant assumption, however, about the unseen content - the paywall aggrieves me at a visceral level. It's the same reaction I have to anyone who withholds information from me, particularly if that information has some possibility of changing the course of my life. I'm reminded of a thought I referenced in my reading review of Michael Lewis's The Fifth Risk - when is it OK to withhold information from the public, especially if it could save lives? The answer should be fast and direct - never, it is never OK! - but the reality is more complicated. As Lewis noted, there are private weather companies withholding forecasts from people for the simple crime of being nonsubscribers. I'm tempted to explore the difference between a forecast about your beach day and that of an approaching storm, and debate where a company should draw the line between private good and public service, but I fear such an exercise suggests my acceptance of the idea that an organization is the appropriate authority for deciding whether I'm entitled to certain information; the mere existence of the expression "business ethics" leaves me skeptical of an organization's ability to correctly make this determination. No matter how you spin it, there is only one word when you are asked to pay for the right to remain alive, but I fear we don't have enough hostage negotiators to deal with every tollbooth in digitized America.
The more challenging aspect of this complaint is that, despite my high-minded misgivings about certain subscription services, the ability to profit from the harm caused to someone else is so ubiquitous to the American experience that it might as well be written into the Constitution. It's hard to point a finger at someone making weather forecasts when the cigarette market - which you'd be forgiven for thinking was on its last breath since the Surgeon General's 1964 report - is worth almost a trillion dollars today; if the tobacco industry can survive without its smokescreen, it's hard to craft a compelling argument against somewhat cloudy. The larger problem is that something is malfunctioning, perhaps akin to a mutation in the DNA of modern society, which lets us accept these endless of examples of one person or entity benefitting from the harm brought to someone else. This is starting to look like a topic way above my pay grade; perhaps when Bob Woodward is finished tallying up his most recent royalty checks, he can find some time to write a book on the pandemic of informed silence, and muse on the duty of citizens and organizations to turn state's evidence for the good of the community. Or maybe, he can simply offer up some insights into why the practice of informed silence is so commonplace in our society, such a routine occurrence that we barely notice when an entity is profiting by keeping something from us, or why there is such a strong incentive to exchange the communal good for individual gain; if it's the price we pay for a free press, I'm not sure it's worth it.
