Time to unfollow them, I guess.
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Guess I’ll be using VPN
Makes sense, we pay our licence fee for our public service, why should people abroad get for free what we have to pay for?
I was happy with the current arrangement of adverts supporting the service use abroad, but if it has to migrate to a subscription model to meet modern demands then that’s the way it is.
I wouldn’t go to another country and ask them to make one of their government’s national public services free for me to use, after all.
Nah mate. Information is free the second it leaves its source. Any attempt to curtail it after then is just a cunts trick.
I imagine you wouldn’t be saying this if it was your work being used.
If you went through the painstaking effort or writing a book or something, I imagine you’d be pretty unhappy if nobody wanted to reimburse you, and you were called a cunt for wanting to be paid for your labour.
I work for a living, so I’m used to my work being exploited as a matter of course.
That’s exactly my point.
Presumably you’re paid for the work you do, and you shouldn’t have to do it for free, yes?
BBC shows ads on some foreign services, but not in the UK
The world service was always free because it’s a propaganda platform that promotes Britain and British values abroad. I guess they are content just to push Reform propaganda to a domestic audience from now on.
Eh nothing of value was lost
BBC announced it’s introducing a paywall for consumers in the U.S
It seems like it’s only for the US? If that’s true can you update the title OP
🌹Done🌹
Awesome thanks! 😊
Feels like subscriptions are inevitable for everything these days.
Well to be fair, a perpetual license for media/news wouldn’t make sense
Given that I’m stateside, this makes me sad. But given that they are funded by UK taxpayers, this is probably the right move.
Of course, that’s just one less outlet for USA citizens to get accurate journalism (better than here, anyway) about what’s happening in our country. Hope Al Jazeera doesn’t follow suit.
Although, you could also argue that those taxes pay for informing and influencing citizens of foreign nations.
America’s media ecosystem is dominated by Fox, Sinclair, and other state party media players. There is a strategic benefit to having a media outlet that doesn’t run through the state media filter.
This is a very important point. There is a reason there is a “cultural victory” in the Civilization games and the UK is definitely ceding cultural influence with this move.
Or the reason why the US has had Radio Free Europe for decades.
I believe all such programs were defunded a few months ago…
Guess the Tankies are loving Trump for that one.
Their grants were cut by a Trump EO, and they’re suing to have them reinstated. They’re very much still around.
To such an extent that I wonder if there is back-channel influence flowing out of the US pushing for this…
As a Canadian, I’d be upset if we got paywalled. The BBC is where I go to for trusted news on international concerns.
Understandable, but I’d still be upset.
Could just VPN into the UK. Proton offers a free, no login required, VPN tier with several end points in the UK
It seems just for people in the US. So hopefully the rest of us will be fine.
Would not be surprised if it was not Thiel and gang ensuring only the billionaires newspapers are read by all us plebes by paying BBC to go paywall.
I love the US defaultism even when they’re talking about another country’s public news station
It does actually seem like it’s only the US for now
Unless I’ve misunderstood your comment
BBC article: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2vgkn7w10o
I asked OP to update the title in another comment which they did (and appreciate) but it made this comment of mine confusing 😅. The original title didn’t have any mention of which country. It just said they were adding a paywall
What’s the defaultism here?
The original title just said something like “BBC is now paywalled” making it sound like it applied to more than 1 of the 195 (worldometers.info recognised) countries in the world.
I’m not British but it’d be pretty alarming to hear that the BBC was adding a paywall that applied to the British if I was British
Honestly this sucks balls for the US. One more credible news source made less accessible.
Geez, I feel slightly to blame for checking bbc.com a couple times a day and rejecting the cookies
So that sounds to me that Americans should use a VPN to pretend they are accessing the website from Europe
Seems like a high bar for checking the news. I’ll just switch to a different news outlet.
Shame to further isolate the US towards the largely crappy intranational journalism options.
And just at a time when the US really needs a decent news service…
I am sure this was discussed at the Starmer - Trump talks as a way to further isolate Americans from the truth.
I guess it’s just Al-Jazeera now…
I’m (relatively) happy with Deutsche Welle (dw.com) and France24 as well
Al Bawaba used to do well also …
Exactly this. Isn’t the point of the BBC world service to communicate/propagandise the British view of what’s happening in the world to other countries? Imagine Russia Today adding a paywall? It’s counter to the entire point! I think you may be on to something about this being a concession to Trump.
Actually, the World Service will remain accessible, but that’s also not where most people go these days.
Decent News Service? The BBC is at best problematic.
I am guessing you’ve never watched (say) Fox News in the US?
I’m not saying the BBC is good per se. I’m saying it’s slightly more objective than the rest.
There is news that’s way more well done than BBC, like the intercept, byline times, propublica etc
A bizarre decision.
Every paywalled news site is a news site I don’t read.
I mean, nobody likes adverts, but I think even fewer people like paying.
Seems fair enough, these things cost money and the #BBC is in a race to diversify it’s income in preparation for the license fee going away. The dynamic description sounds like they want to preserve the casual visitors experience of an open site.
I get ads on my BBC podcasts when I’m abroad. I assume that’s all part of it.
I know there’s rights issues and all but if they made a real BBC streaming service with their back catalog and every David Attenborough special in 4K, it’d be one thing but Americans are inundated with news and streaming services. I pay for my local newspaper’s digital site — mostly because if I don’t, who will? But even The NY Times has to have recipes and word games to keep people subscribed. Why would anyone pay more than a dollar a month or something for BBC News?
The U.S. seems like an odd place to trial this. It’s the most competitive media market in the world and we’re all already sick of being asked to pay for 40 different services. In conclusion:🏴☠️
i mean they basically have that with britbox
It’s insane how much music, art, theatre, television etc still comes out of the UK, and how little they’ve capitalised on it - letting the Americans take all the initiative.
Gotta get that TV loicense.
I suppose the TV licence in the UK is a sort of paywall, even if it is made of swiss cheese and enforced by folk with all the legal standing of Larry the Head Mouser or whatever moggy it is now.
I pay it, but I’m loathed to now. Not because I watch any live TV or BBC programming, but because I use the BBC News site a metric fucktonne and I suppose I justify it to myself as funding the BBC News department rather than Graham Norton’s salary.
Maybe I’ll fuck it off though. I do fancy a letter war with Capita or whoever managed the enforcement these days.
