Ouch! My Paywall Disgust Revealed My Hypocrisy

I used to hate paywalls. What a hypocrite I was! Taking without giving — no more.

Soul Dancer, Soul University
Thought Thinkers
Published in
7 min readJul 3, 2024

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Rusted iron gate image by Bernd ~ Computer laptod Image by Pexels from Pixabay composition by author.

The Problem

How do you react when you catch yourself in a patch of hypocrisy? When you realize that what you say conflicts with what you do — what do you do?

For example? I preach the benefits of gratitude. (That’s what Buddhist monks do. Right?) Well? Confession time. Not long ago I clicked on a paywalled post (outside of medium). I got mad. Why? The last time I accessed that site — all their content was free. Little did I know that the site recently updated access to paid members only. Since I subscribe to access content on many sites already, why did I get angry at this particular paywall in this particular moment?

My anger made me realize what a freakin hypocrite I was. In that moment of anger, I realized I was angry at a site that wants support. Why am I angry at something I already do? I discovered the source of my anger stems from not knowing how my freshly painted paywalled site shares subscriber proceeds with content creators who fill their pages. For example, Friends of Medium (FOM) writers who also enrolled themselves in medium’s Partner Program tap into medium’s tool’s to earn income on their posts. I know, as a FOM member, each time I…

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