Why is 404 media banned?

It's not, I see it on the front page all the time. Lots of times the topics they report on get flagged, though. My favorites has a lot of 404 links. My understanding is if there's an archive link it should be fine.

"Softbanned" here means that it comes dead-on-submission without any users actually flagging it, requiring vouches from multiple other users to get back to baseline.

Those submissions you saw likely either had enough vouchers lurching new with showdead or a mod blessing.

EDIT: See sibling comment. In dangs words, they are banned.

It is banned, apparently because it is paywalled and doesn’t allow people to use paywall bypass links, which isn’t true and so the reasoning doesn’t make any sense, so clearly there is a different reason

I asked ChatGPT and it linked me to a post dang responded to.

It’s related to their paywall.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42308348

That policy deserves re-evaluation. I don't pay for 404 Media. But they're breaking stories on this issue. Banning them de facto bans discussion of not only Apple's App Store monopoly, but also Cupertino's capitulation to this administration.

If their articles are so important, why don't they allow everyone to see them?

Because they need money to continue to exist

> If their articles are so important, why don't they allow everyone to see them?

Most people read the news to be entertained. They aren’t making decisions of consequence, they aren’t civically involved and they don’t know anyone who does either. For these folks, TV and free news is fine.

The minority of decision makers, on the other hand, value information directly, but are not numerous enough to sustain investigative journalism through ads. They won’t pay, however, if they can get what they need for free.

So you wind up with an ecosystem of emotionally-triggering free slop and deeply researched, potentially at risk to the journalist, and paywalled journalism. The latter is impactful in part because it reaches people the former would not.

Their paywall is no different to any other paywall, so it is clearly not because of the paywall