waider

The existence of paywalls (i.e. a requirement that you be a subscriber to read full content) is something I'm not wholly opposed to; while much has been written about the quality of free vs. paid-for content, and paying for something doesn't necessarily make it any better (human nature being to at least unconciously assume this to be the case, going by several studies), I still like to think that someone, somewhere, is getting paid for entertaining or informing me - even if the subscription revenue is only a fraction of that. Anyway, it appears the Irish Times has decided to take down their paywall from Monday, although I can't say the move from Ireland.com to irishtimes.com makes a whole lot of sense to me given that it's effectively discarding one of the biggest online brand-names in the country. Apparently it's being turned into a portal site, last seen in the wild in the Internet Gold Rush of nineteen ought eight (or something like that). Portals, I seem to recall, were a good way of killing off a piece of Internet real-estate. Maybe that's the intention.