Dear Newscientist.com,

I love your articles – I am a fan of your content, and your mission. However, your paywall is becoming especially annoying. I’ve hit it a dozen times in the last few days (enough times that I am taking time to write this letter to you). Let me help you see how your readers are experiencing your paywall.

It is the end of January, and I am a blogger. I long ago used up the 3-article monthly allotment you bequeathed to me. Therefore, many of the Newscientist articles that I click on (say because I see a headline on a social media site) present me with your paywall like this:

When I get the paywall, I close the window and I do one of two things: 1) I look in Google news for another source for the same story, or 2) I move on. You lost my eyeballs, and you lost the eyeballs of anyone who happens to read the blogs at HowStuffWorks.

I will not register to get four more articles, because that would only last me a day. I do not see a reason to pay for your articles, because there are plenty of free sources available as alternatives. And even if I had paid to eliminate the paywall, I would not want to subject my readers to the annoyance of the paywall.

I have to believe that there are many other people who are experiencing the same thing that I am experiencing, and therefore I believe your paywall is hurting you. I suspect that fewer bloggers link to your articles than would if there were no paywall. I believe that fewer people link to your articles in social media sites because of the paywall. I admit that this is conjecture on my part – I have no hard data to prove that this is happeing. But I do have these two data points:
- Only 35 People Will Pay To Get Past Newsday’s Paywall
- Alan Rusbridger: ‘By having a paywall, you are cutting your journalism off from the world’

Perhaps I am wrong. Maybe your paywall has dramatically increased your subscriptions. If so, I congratulate you. Or maybe there are only a few people who read more than 3 of your articles every month, so most readers do not see your paywall and therefore it is not an issue. What I know is that I see your paywall every day. If others are experiencing the same thing I am experiencing, it would seem like you are alienating your web audience with this practice.

Thank you,
Marshall