Ack, not a fan of this thread. I definitely get some of my news for free (advertisers pick up the cost, like on CNNMoney), but some of that free news people are subscribing to ain't free.
NPR / public radio for example. Yeah, I get that most people don't support their public radio station. And if one is just a very casual listener, I'm not suggesting that you do. But if you are a regular listener and simply rely on other regular contributors (like me) to pick up the tab for you, congratulations, you have just crossed the threshold from frugal to cheap.
And as for getting around paywalls in a routine way to circumvent paying for a subscription service, are these the same people that removed the filter to get free HBO back in the day as well? Come on folks, if you are routinely going around the paywall you are in effect stealing cable. Congratulations, you have just crossed the threshold from frugal to cheap. Those good folks at the NYT aren't performing a public service, it's a business. Don't steal from it.
I used to read the WaPo regularly, and then they threw a paywall up (no shock, they have been bleeding money for years). Oh, I know how to get around it easily enough, the question becomes do I respect their right to run a business or do I simply use the easy hacks to get around it. They have recently offered the service for $19/year. I am very close to biting, I miss the quality. I won't steal in the meantime.
I fully realize this isn't such an easy question. When Napster first came out back in the day I was sucking down music left and right, in no small part because I was pissed at the labels for what I saw as price gouging over the years (having to pay $15 for the one song on a CD I actually wanted). I sure wasn't alone there, lots of normally ethical folks my age saw a mixture of opportunity laced with payback for perceived injustice and went nuts. The moment songs became readily available for purchase individually I started supporting that business model. I'm not terribly proud of that looking back.
Media companies have been upended by the Internet. The typical big city paper is struggling, most are losing money year after year (oddly, small town papers are doing well because the Internet hasn't claimed their turf). The NYT and the WaPo and the WSJ are evolving to meet those challenges and paywalls are becoming the new subscription service, just like HBO. Please don't end run them just because it is easy to do (just like removing the cable filter was easy to do in 1989). If you wouldn't steal cable in 2014, don't end run a paywall.