Rationally-speaking, maybe not. I’ve been a long-time subscriber. When I first subscribed, my day-to-day involved embedded Linux and getting the “breaking news” was pretty valuable. These days I still do that somewhat but I’m stuck on a crusty vendor kernel and anything I read about a kernel newer than 5.15 is going to land on my desk in approximately 2028… but I still subscribe, mostly with a patronage mindset: I don’t acutely get value from the subscription every week, but I think it’s a community service and I’m happy to pitch in a few bucks to keep it alive.

Same as me. I started subscribing LWN when I was a Linux enthusiast from my early college days, because the content was so good and interesting. Nowadays I barely read it but I still keep my subscription alive, just because I think the content is worth it.

Wouldn’t rationally speaking you’d want to support them to keep them around? Or did you mean selfishly speaking?

not saying parent feels this way but the target class of this website often does not separate the two. we're still sloughing off the goofballery of objectivism, i guess.

They literally fearmonger for a permanent underclass, it’s definitely not decreasing

(FYIGM = F* You, I Got Mine)

based on other replies to the parent, at least some folks feel differently :) but generally i'm not very optimistic about it.

I think the generosity and straightforwardness are a big part of the attraction for many subscribers.

They've always respected their readers and I hope that continues to pay off.

Agree. I don't read it every week, but I greatly appreciate the quality (both of the technical content and the lack of advertising/sensationalism/clickbait) when I do read an article. Happy to pay to support this style of tech reporting and journalism.

Selfishly speaking is the word you were looking for.

Easy to say until they have to eventually make the hard decision to shut down.

This is why nobody likes economists.

TBF, economists, if any group, would understand the freerider problem and what it leads to if there are too many of them.

You’d think, but in practice their entire policy prescription seems to come down to “well if they didn’t want me to have it, they should’ve bolted it down, this is really an incentives problem, if you look at it.”

Rationally speaking, if you're getting value from it, you should be interested in its continued existence and therefore subscribe.

Well for me, at least, it's those features that make me a subscriber. If not for those I wouldn't do it

This is pretty close to "I shall stand under this tree during the storm to stay dry, and if this tree starts to drip on me I'll just run over to that other tree and stay dry there" thinking. If LWN goes away, that value leaves HN too. Rationally speaking.

Rational thinking includes thinking about the long term.