> Whenever there is a story from NYT on HN (or any other large media outlet), the top comment is almost always a link to an archived version which reproduces the text verbatim. [...] And yet, whenever there is a submission about a book, a TV show, a movie, a video game, an album, a comic book, or any other form of IP, it is in fact very much _not_ the norm for the top-rated comment to be a Pirate Bay link.
If the story was linking directly to the "book, TV show, movie, video game, album, comic book, etc", and the link only worked for some people while others randomly got a login request or similar, you'd also see the top comment being a link to an archived version which avoids the login screen. That is: the main difference is that the archive link has the exact same content as the link submitted in the story, only bypassing the login screen that some people see. And the only reason the archive site has the content is that it didn't get the login screen; if everyone always got the login screen, what you would see on the archive site would be the same login screen.
> the archive link has the exact same content as the link submitted
No, articles are updated as new information comes in, retractions are made, etc. Especially breaking news (the type that would reach the top of HN). The archived versions are outdated.
> others randomly got a login request
It's not random, you get a number of free articles before the paywall appears ("soft" paywall).
The paywall is removed entirely for some topics/stories, especially matters of public health (common during the pandemic).
> the only reason the archive site has the content is that it didn't get the login screen
No, it's because they don't block archive crawlers, and prefer people bypassing the paywall and reading news at NYT. Hopefully users find the content valuable, and some of them subscribe as a result.
i don’t believe that is fully correct. The general policy here is that you cannot link to something that is paywalled unless that site plays the game of allowing crawlers but not actual human eyeballs. In the latter case the link is allowable because there are ways around it that the site owners allow.
If the story was linking directly to the "book, TV show, movie, video game, album, comic book, etc", and the link only worked for some people while others randomly got a login request or similar, you'd also see the top comment being a link to an archived version which avoids the login screen. That is: the main difference is that the archive link has the exact same content as the link submitted in the story, only bypassing the login screen that some people see. And the only reason the archive site has the content is that it didn't get the login screen; if everyone always got the login screen, what you would see on the archive site would be the same login screen.