Editing Pay-walling

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'''Pay-walling''' or '''paywalling''' consists of the action of setting a restriction to part of the content from a software or a service that can be only accessed if the user pays a one-time purchase or a suscription. This restriction of features that require payment are known as '''paywalls'''. Paywalling is a very common practice on websites, video games and on [[software as a service]].

==How it works==
Companies or developers can add or block features under a paywall in order to increase their revenue. 


==Why it is a problem==
===Monetization overload===
{{Main|Monetization overload}}
Aggressive paywalling could lead into monetization overload, paywalling a significative amount of the available content, even when similar content might be found for free. 

===Decrease of quality===
Paywalls can block essential features that were originally for free, or even be more limited for users who already paid for them. In some cases, the usage of third-party software to bypass paywalls can penalize the user for doing so. An example for this is [[YouTube]] that restricts the amount of videos that someone can watch if the platform detects an [[Ad block | ad-blocker]] running on the browser, forcing users to find another alternative or paying for Premium instead.

===Affordability issues===
Excessive paywalling can be an issue for people with a limited income, specially if the prices of the paywalls increase. 

==Examples==
*Paywalls are a common thing in video games, specially in games targeted for mobile devices. Some paywalled things that are often paywalled are cosmetics and special features that cannot be obtained by playing a free-to-play user.
*Several newspaper websites paywall their articles by limiting the viewers the amount of articles they can read or by allowing them to see only a portion of the article. An [https://gitflic.ru/project/magnolia1234/bpc_uploads  open-source extension] compatible with Chromium-based and Firefox-based browsers allows to avoid paywalls from most of the newspaper websites.
*[[Consent-or-pay]] is an aggresive form of paywall used by some websites that when paid does not track the user.


==References==
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[[Category:Common terms]]