...if you ever run a news website or a video game blog or something like that, and I ever even once see you hold your content hostage behind a paywall, then just know that I'm going to go out of my way to make sure that I never see your website or blog show up for me again, whether that's in Google searches or in my news app or whatever. It's actually worse when you have it set up to let people read two or three articles/entries for free, before throwing up the paywall. ("FiRsT oNe'S fReE" says the skeevy drug dealer or the scummy casino barker.) Your content is not something I can't do without, so don't even try to act like it is. Your content is not that valuable to me.

(Then again, for the most recent site in question [which I won't even name here, so as to not give them even that much more traffic], I suppose I should have heeded the earlier red flag that was them trying to get me to sign up for a monthly or yearly subscription just because I happened to hit reply on one of the comments under one of their articles to see if I could make a comment without having to make an account [since some rare few websites still let you do that]. Merely having to sign up for something for free is bad enough, and I usually don't bother with even that much. Being faced with an option select for a $7-$99 monthly/$70-$999 yearly subscription is on a whole other level entirely[1] and is a "fuck right off" moment.)

Find less obnoxious, insufferable ways to make money.

[1] - And even for that link there, I had to replace the original one with an archive.is variant, because the original one was, yes, partially behind a paywall.

"The G.O.P. abandoned a bipartisan border security bill that also aided Ukraine after Democrats called their bluff on immigration, agreeing to tough measures Republicans demanded."

(Just to note: the above link is to a New York Times article, so it might be trapped behind a paywall. If so, just enable NoScript for nytimes.com, and it should become visible. Or, at least, it's visible for me, anyway. [EDIT] Here is a snapshot of the article from archive.is, at least until that dies. To hell with paywalls. [/EDIT])

The gist of the above article: The GQP said they weren't going to support sending more money to Ukraine unless a bunch of draconian border restrictions (which had dick all to do with support for Ukraine) were tacked onto the bill. The GQP was banking on the Democrats to balk and, thus, allow the GQP to prattle about how the Democrats are "weak on the border." (And, I guess, also "weak on helping Ukraine"?) Instead, the Democrats essentially said, sure, okay, and agreed to most of the border shit. And, now, the GQPers are the ones balking and scuttling the bill, because their Lord and Savior Donald Trump would rather "the border" remain an issue, instead of allow it to be fixed[1] under Biden's administration.

The very best thing that could happen for this country would be for every single Trumpublican who is running for election/reelection in November (up to and including, of course, Dumbfuck Jizzstain Trump himself) to be soundly, unquestionably, thoroughly trounced forever. Until Trump is dead and gone, the Republican Party is essentially irredeemable (assuming they ever were redeemable, even before Trump befouled the political process by poking his mushroom-like chode into it all).

Don't get me wrong, the Democrats are still shit, too. But the Democrats are more like the kind of shit you can use for compost, at least, in which useful things could potentially be planted and grown. The GQP, on the other hand, is more like sludge that a sewage treatment plant would filter out as hazardous, toxic waste, in which nothing living could ever grow.

[1] - Depending on one's definition of the word "fixed," of course, since the bill kind of sucked, regardless, in part because the Democrats let the GQP "win" on so many of the things the GQP asked for. And now the GQP is rejecting that very same bill, because American politics is fucking stupid and broken and worse-than-worthless.

The latest victim of this, today, was "Rock, Paper, Shotgun," with their (to paraphrase) "If you want to see the rest of this article, you need to pay for our subscription" horseshit. Somewhat vaguely disappointing... but I'm not too disappointed, because I'm not all that much worse off than I was before. The only reason I even had them in my Google News phone app in the first place was due to sheer, lazy convenience, and now that that convenience has gone away, to the curb they have been kicked. *shrug*

Find less obnoxious ways to make money.