Gift link: <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/10/openai-safety-team-resignation/688881/?gift=v5U_UzUTothfWXsPxtvNVAh7esWToMRD6XnbXmc5WgA" rel="nofollow">https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/10/openai-safety...
For a very long time publishing something in a newspaper has been considered a way of putting something on the public record - up to and including legal obligations like announcements of deaths. The fact that newspapers cost money has never been considered a barrier to that.
Publishing in a newspaper gets you distribution and a permanent record. After one day access was also virtually free.
Going behind a paywall is a reduced distribution over what an individual can easily access, and the content is no longer permanent but subject to whatever the publisher chooses to keep providing.
I'm sure it would to a great many of them. The money would be insignificant, but there's a congnitive overhead that you had to have a subscription so that paying for it becomes thinking about that becomes friction even while the cost is insignificant. Like, hm, am I willig to just forget about it and let it charge forever so I can read this one article, do I care enough to remember I have a subscription to the site in the future, can I read the one thing and cancel on the spot, will that work? blahblah. To be sure, I'm sure some quite wealthy people could be completely unbothered by it, but I think it's far from a foregone conclusion simply by the price being insignificant for them--the subscription is a mental non-monetary transaction, you have to take at least a small mental journey of being an 'x' subscriber in a sense, and that's friction
jameshart · · focus · HN ↗
Lerc · · focus · HN ↗
jameshart · · focus · HN ↗
Lerc · · focus · HN ↗
Going behind a paywall is a reduced distribution over what an individual can easily access, and the content is no longer permanent but subject to whatever the publisher chooses to keep providing.
isolay · · focus · HN ↗
theonemind · · focus · HN ↗