But that's like submitting a link to Adobe's most recent Photoshop update and then tell people "you can download Photoshop for free by starting your Bittorent client".

I would offer a different analogy: "Here's a link to Photoshop, and Adobe will let you use it for free on a 30-day trial".

No-one's cracking the WSJ site, sharing someone else's subscription, or any other dubious behaviour: we're simply saying that "WSJ choose to disable their paywall for visitors referred by Google, so if you wish to avoid their paywall, you can use this practice, which WSJ allow".

Some HN users subscribe to the WSJ, others find the content valuable enough to use the web link. The submitter and those who up-vote the submission also believe the article has value.

The paywall is part of the WSJ's business model. HN submissions include the source of the article. If you choose not to support the WSJ or their business practices, you have the choice of not reading their articles.

I think the (fair) complaint that in situations like this where similar articles are written by a slew of sites, better good could be done sourcing from a site without a paywall; both in accessibility and in supporting non-paywalled news.

Even with the web links, that often doesn't work with WSJ any more with how they cookie; so I'm very supportive of non-paywalled links as a preference.

That's a good idea, especially for those that are essentially publishing the wire stories. If people find them, they can provide them in the comments, or perhaps submit them separately. Hard to tell sometimes if there's a better one out there.

I've heard people describe problems they have with the WSJ web links. I don't deny that they do, but I'm surprised I haven't seen them myself. I'm just running Safari with Ghostery. Never had an issue with WSJ (and I don't have a subscription).

I'm not sure what the complaint is here.

The barrier to entry is literally clicking or tapping twice.

It only works a limited numbers of times per month and it makes some of us feel dirty, like riding without a ticket, even if you know you won't get checked.