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Are news website paywalls putting people's lives at risk?

We share links to a lot of our stories on Facebook. We do this because it's where potential readers are. More than one billion of them, in fact.

We share links to a lot of our stories on Facebook.

We do this because it's where potential readers are. More than one billion of them, in fact.

We put our stories in front of these billion or so potential readers and hope that a fraction of them click on our links.

I would compare it to an electronic version of the newsstand. We have designers who try to make the front page of our print newspaper attractive each day so that people who see it on the newsstand will be inspired to pick it up and buy it.

Yes, buy it. Remember the quaint notion of paying for news?

So, if Facebook is but one of our electronic newsstands, why are some of those who stumble upon our links surprised to then encounter a request for money? Facebook is not, after all, an enterprise built upon free stuff.

Don't believe me? Check them out on the NASDAQ.

When we posted this story recently and promoted it on Facebook, we got this familiar response:

facebook complaint

Is it a valid argument? (I really want to know what you think.)

To carry on with my comparison to the print product, I've never heard of someone calling up to complain that they couldn't read the print newspaper without buying a copy.

If you'd like to know how affordable online access to the Times Colonist actually is, click HERE. But that won't settle this argument because many of us operate under that assumption that online content should be free.

And don't forget we do provide eight free articles every 30 days. If you are concerned about helping to find missing teenage girls, perhaps you can save your free views for such stories. But I bet at least some of you used the freebies to read about that giant bullfrog they found in Port Alberni.

So my answer to the comments above is that I don't believe we are restricting access to important local news. I believe we are providing good local news coverage at an affordable price that helps to ensure we can continue providing good local news coverage.

Share your thoughts below . . . or find this blog on Facebook.

@CaleCowan