The Paywall Gets a Little Lower at the Inky Website
You no longer need an access code to read all http://t.co/zHDhRZebxG links shared on Twitter or Facebook. #newday
— Philadelphia Inquirer Politics (@PoliticsINQ) August 7, 2014
The hard and high paywall is dead. Long live the somewhat lowered paywall.
More than a year after the Inquirer and Daily News unveiled their new websites — hidden behind “hard” paywalls that required a paid subscription (or, more often, an access code) to read — the paywalls are softening a bit. Starting today, readers who go to Inquirer.com via links on Facebook or Twitter will get to read the story for free.
Philly.com had continued to carry almost all of the stories from those two newspapers on its free site. The result? People noticed. And both newspaper newsrooms complained that their efforts were being usurped by the in-house competitor at Philly.com.
That won’t be as much a problem now.
As of this morning, links from the Inquirer’s Twitter and Facebook sites were taking readers directly to articles without requiring payment. The Daily News was expected to do the same, but as of this morning, its links were taking readers to the free Philly.com versions of its stories.
