Sorry, I will not be able to

[barbtries]

Last edited Fri Oct 25, 2024, 03:30 PM - Edit history (1)

provide gift articles from the WP anymore. I canceled my subscription.

I feel quite sad. The way the 4th estate has failed this country is truly lamentable.

ETA just paid off my Prime card and canceled amazon prime. first i looked through my orders so I knew what to get my son for christmas. But as it is set up i have until Feb2025.

[marble falls]

1. I get it. It's been slipping badly in that year or so.

[onecaliberal]

2. Thank you. This IS what is required.

[barbtries]

4. it is.

full disclosure i'm struggling about amazon. But, I'm leaning toward shitcanning that too.

[onecaliberal]

8. I understand. I got rid of amazon as well. It takes adjusting, just remind yourself.

[barbtries]

12. right.

i've gotten really spoiled with it. I want this, i'll have it tomorrow, cool. Can I get a stand alone subscription to BritBox? i probably will go ahead and send that message. it's been the right thing to do even before today.

[onecaliberal]

13. I did it in August. Things don't take much longer to arrive. Just be careful about shipping costs.

[True Blue American]

36. I joined Walmart Plus.

I love it. Order the same things I goton Amazon for 1/ 3rd the price, ,same merchandise. Paramount Plue free, 10 cents off om]n gas. Order groceries, I pick a time, on my front porch in an hour.

Krogers has one, have their own trucks.

[barbtries]

42. I might.

Last edited Fri Oct 25, 2024, 04:54 PM - Edit history (1)

although i have about as much respect for the walton family as i do for jeff bezos, so i might not. generally i avoid shopping there, but weirdly, their bird food is the one the birds near my home love.

[moonscape]

46. That's the one thing I get from

Walmart - birdseed! Pennington Select Sunflower Chips. Most amazingly, they ship it free if one orders $35 and that stuff is heavy! I have no idea how they make $$ on it.

[barbtries]

56. i swear it's weird!

I've tried Target and amazon and the birds wanted nothing to do with it. Put up that walmart birdseed and they clean out the feeder in a day or two.

[Lulu KC]

37. I think Britbox is on Hoopla and/or Kanopy

if you have either of those from your library. Free--there's a limit of maybe 10 programs/month.

[barbtries]

58. I googled

and it is a stand alone streaming service. $9/month. I'm not familiar with the other sites you mentioned, but if it means having to sit through commercials, I'll pass.

[Lulu KC]

67. No commercials/no cost

If you have a library card, you can check with your library and they’ll tell you.

[DENVERPOPS]

34. I don't think people realize

Amazon is not what it used to be....deliveries later than stated, lower cost, etc etc.

New trick for you to try, and prove something to yourself about Amazon:

I look at all the vast choices of the item I want on Amazon. Then I google that exact item. I find it cheaper somewhere else, often with shipping included in the price.
Last week I wanted a certain type of stepladder from a leading manufacturer. I found it, the exact brand and model, and went to google.
Amazon wanted 125 bucks, I found it, (by googling different listed suppliers), for 75 bucks with shipping paid and about the same delivery time......

Try it on every purchase, you will be surprised.......(shocked)

[True Blue American]

38. On Walmart

I put an item in my basket, it goes on sale they tell me. I had one of those small elyptical$249.00 went on sale $98.99
All my aches and pains are gone. Shouder, back and muscle. I also go to the Y pool. We have a great class of friends.
I saw that commercial of that guy hopping, thought, no waty, but it works!

[NJCher]

40. I've done this, too

Amazon has raised their prices and it's no longer the deal it once was.

They work fine as a catalog of products, but I almost always am able to beat their prices elsewhere, including shipping.

[True Blue American]

62. Caplital One has an app that checks prices fot you

I( am not cheap😜😌🫠

[barbtries]

60. good idea.

it's a done deal I canceled amazon prime.

[MotownPgh]

77. I also check the manufacturer's

website. They often have the same price as Amazon so I buy direct. But some only ship through Amazon

[The Unmitigated Gall]

76. Ended my Prime

But have a lot of movie purchases accumulated over the years on Amazon. Guess I’ll lose those too.
Oh well. My dad couldn’t swim and served in the Navy (Pacific) in WW II; my uncle served in the Marines in Korea. I can do this and a lot more.

[hlthe2b]

3. Several of us have, myself included. I have tried to subscribe to one national newspaper while supporting

at least one local or regional paper each year. WAPO had been the national choice. I am devastated by this action and overt cowardice.

[barbtries]

10. after the 2016 election,

in some sort of obsessive desire to save the First Amendment, I subscribed to probably 1/2 dozen outlets, including the LATimes, the NYT, and WP. The post was the last of the 3 I was still subscribed to. Also the News and Observer, keeping it local, but this year they literally tried to rip me off for about $200, so I won't even visit the website let alone pay for it.

I still have the Atlantic and maybe I can squeeze out some money for Rolling Stone, or another decent source. At any rate, through it all, DU has been here reliably providing the best aggregator of the news I know of.

I've since run out of work and am pretty poor at the moment, but at the least I know the next time I read an article at the Guardian or some other worthy source, I'll donate at least if not subscribe.

I'm actually kind of shocked at how sad this makes me feel.

[Quiet Em]

5. Thank you.

At this point we have to use our voices and our power to stop what is happening.

[Basso8vb]

6. You did the right thing.

It's not always easy.

[Ocelot II]

7. Same here - actually, my subscription runs through 11/20,

so at least until then I can read the scathing comments from the many other people who have canceled their subscriptions. I wonder if staff and columnists will quit?

[barbtries]

16. I've been scrolling through the comments there

and believe that at least one editor has already resigned. don't quote me on it.

[Ocelot II]

19. Robert Kagan resigned.

https://www.mediaite.com/news/washington-post-editor-at-large-robert-kagan-resigns-over-papers-decision-not-to-endorse-kamala-harris/

[CrispyQ]

9. The misogyny is thick in this country.

That's all it can be, IMO. The economists side with Harris. The orange stain has threatened to go after the media. If that's their concern, then their cowards, but I think it's the woman thing. Democracies around the world have elected women leaders, yet here we are, the supposed gold star of democracy & a whole bunch of people, but mostly small-minded men, can't get past a woman leading the country.

[dweller]

11. No apologies necessary

For acts of bravery
👍



✌🏻

[usonian]

14. Got your solution here.

• Go to the article, paywalled or not.
• Copy the URL in the search/URL bar.
• Go to one of archive.is, archive.md, archive.ph, archive.today (they all work)
• Past the wapo URL you copied into the entry box

Your archived article will appear.
The paywallers open up to Google and others in order to get clicks from search.
But not you and me.

Other sites to use:
https://bypasspaywallreader.com
https://www.archivebuttons.com

[jayschool2013]

27. Please pay for content produced by newsrooms you respect

I know that might not be many, but the hard-working journalists are generally not to blame for these decisions.

I have canceled my Post subscription, though, so thanks for the workaround.

[NJCher]

41. you recommended this to me a while back

I'm amazed at how many articles I can access.

I try to contribute, too.

[Think. Again.]

15. Thank you, you've given us a much greater gift.

[Mr. Evil]

17. Sometimes, doing the right thing is hard.

But, it is still the right thing to do.

[kimbutgar]

18. No problem I respect the stand you took

but now that I know they are in the pocket for the orange turd I will take it with a grain of sand what they report.

[herding cats]

20. I just did the same.

I'm not someone prone to knee jerk reactions by any means, this one felt necessary.

[SheltieLover]

21. Good for you!

I wish I had one, just so I could cancel it.

[Espoir]

22. Tried to Support a Free Press During the Last TFG Administration ...

I was alarmed enough about the stifling and disparagement of the press during the 2016-2020 timeframe that I started paid subscriptions to a few key news outlets including the NYTimes, WaPo, and our local paper. I'm saddened that my support instead was used to prop up yet another false facade to get TFG elected. I'm going to miss these. I still subscribe to my local paper but they've changed their model to that of a statewide paper and so little to no national news.

Going to have to take up another hobby, probably a good idea anyway ...

[PortTack]

23. Thank you for canceling!

you did the right thing!

[Cha]

24. Ohh... TY for your past Contributions to

to DU with Gift Articles, barbtries. 💙

I can imagine how sad it feels.

[RobertDevereaux]

25. Ah, but THEN, the Philly Inquirer comes through!!!

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/a/endorsement-president-kamala-harris-democracy-20241025.html

[NJCher]

43. I'll take my subscription money here

thanks for the reminder that they are stand-up people.

[jayschool2013]

26. I'm paid through June 2025

but have canceled my subscription as of that date.

As a career journalist who has had friends and colleagues at the Post, this sickens me.

The journalists in the room aren't to blame.

It's the business people, specifically the businessmen.

[drray23]

48. I wonder if these journalists who are clearly upset at this

Could pen an op-ed in another paper like the Philadelphia inquirer to register their discontent and take a stand.

I would bet that most journalists who are working for the Washington post are at the top of their profession and would easily get a job elsewhere if WP retaliate.

[COL Mustard]

28. I'm very disappointed in my hometown newspaper today

Clearly Bezos has caved to Trump's pressure. It is very sad.

I haven't canceled my subscription yet since it wouldn't expire until next October anyway, and I'd probably have forgotten about this by then, but I'm still keeping that as an option.

I hope the NYT will pick up lots of new subscribers from this outrageous decision by the Post's "leadership".

[Cirsium]

49. Brown nosing

More like brown nosing than caving IMO.

[barbtries]

63. that, or greed.

pure greed or bezos is a closet fascist, whichever. both. It's wrong, that much I know.

[Cirsium]

66. They are not in any danger

The wealthy people are not in any danger from MAGA. It would be beneficial for them. History has lessons for us about that.

Business leaders, focused on profits and especially the survival of their enterprises, were complicit in the persecution of Jews, actively assisting or accommodating the dismissal of Jewish directors and employees and the “Aryanization” of Jewish-owned businesses and in the use of labor during the war.

During the war, specific, privately owned companies became implicated in the crimes of the Holocaust through the use of forced labor. About one-half million Jews lost their lives as forced laborers. One of the largest German corporations, I.G. Farben, managed a synthetic fuel and rubber factory near Auschwitz that employed up to 35,000 prisoners; at least 27,000, the majority of them Jewish, died from harsh conditions. The firm Hugo Scheider used forced laborers in an ammunition plant in occupied Poland; about four-fifths of the 25,000 Jews who passed through the Skarzysko-Kamienna plant died as a result of unhealthy working conditions.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-role-of-business-elites

How Nazi Billionaires Thrived in Postwar Germany

In Nazi Germany, industrialists built vast fortunes from slave labor and stolen Jewish property. In postwar West Germany, they were allowed to keep them — with denazification doing little to trouble those who had profited most from the regime.

In 2019, the German tabloid Bild published shocking revelations about one of the country’s most powerful companies. Bild discovered that Albert Reimann — creator of a family business whose investment firm, JAB Holding, has majority stakes in brands from Dr Pepper to Jacobs Douwe Egberts — was a devoted Nazi who sexually abused, tortured, and humiliated slave workers in his business during World War II. The Reimann family fortune is estimated at €33 billion. The family decided to confront its dark past and donated millions of euros to nonprofit organizations devoted to helping religious and national minorities and seeking out the families of the war prisoners forced to work for the grandfather’s firm.

This was just one recent case showing how Nazi tycoons had been able to cover up their dark pasts in postwar West Germany. One of the journalists who dug into the archives to find out about this history was David de Jong. His new book, Nazi Billionaires, follows the story of men who became part of the Third Reich’s business and financial elite, making their fortunes by stealing Jewish-owned firms, banks, and other assets, as well as exploiting forced and slave labor in concentration camps during World War II. Companies like Siemens, Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler-Benz, Dr. Oetker, Porsche, Krupp, IG Farben, and many more cooperated with the SS, which built “satellite concentration camps” near these private companies’ factories and mines where slave laborers toiled in the most appalling conditions. While, after 1945, legal proceedings were launched against Nazi businessmen, almost none would be punished. Industrialists like Günther Quandt, Friedrich Flick, and Ferdinand Porsche were even allowed to keep their assets and continue business as usual. During the “economic miracle” of the 1950s in Germany, they made even bigger fortunes, and their family businesses remain among the most powerful in Germany. Some have even continued to support far-right political parties.

https://jacobin.com/2022/10/nazi-billionaires-businesses-denazification-de-jong-interview

[brakester]

81. Thanks

for the history, Cirsium!

[S/V Loner]

54. I don't think he is caving to trump...

I think he is caving to Thiel, Musk, and the other billionaires supporting the GOP ticket. That is the power behind trump.
My take anyway. Classic Fascist intimidation of the media. Imagine what the nation is in for if they actually get control of the government.

[Blue Full Moon]

29. Time to cancel Amazon and Prime

[Harker]

30. Don't be sorry, please.

They've spoken loudly with their silence.

[riversedge]

31. thank you for past articles.

[cachukis]

32. Cancelled a month ago. Frustrated with accommodating

the falsehoods for financial gain. I know they need readers, but "The truth dies in darkness," forced my hand.

[Ms. Toad]

33. Most articles (including WP and NYT and Atlantic) can be obtained using archive.li

Copy the URL to the article.

Go to Archive.li and paste the URL in the first box.

Answer the robot question (just recently added)

Wait for it to be archived, and - voila - a link to the full text article will appear in the URL box.

[barbtries]

35. Thank you

I do like supporting the media. I think I may replace WP with the New Yorker, but I have some time to decide.

[NJCher]

44. New Yorker is great!

I've subscribed for years.

[Ms. Toad]

65. We still have a subscription to WP

(And I use it when following WP links.) We let NYT lapse. We let our local paper (which we subscribed to starting in 1974) lapse around 5 years ago. I love supporting the local news media, even if it isn't fantastic - but the local stories were few and far between. Virtually all of the stories were recycled national stories, 24 hours (or more) late.

So - I agree with you, in principle - but my practices have changed recently as costs rise and content has changed.

[Lulu KC]

39. I have cancelled mine, too

I still have a few months left to organize my withdrawal treatment from Carolyn Hax. I wonder if Betty Ford has a program.

[irisblue]

45. I canceled my WaPo & Amazon Prime accts as well.

Money talks Bezos

[ReRe]

47. Don't feel sad!

You have shown serious courage. Courage in the face of totalitarianism!

[bucolic_frolic]

50. I have completed about 7 Amazon transactions over the last 22 years

I have no plans to do another. Too much power with these billionaires and their companies. Trump, Jeff, Zuck ........ and all the rest. The little guy is squeezed out and the products he buys are shrinking, deteriorating, cheapened. No one can get ahead in this mess except those at the top.

[Evolve Dammit]

51. I hear ya. The only way we can express our disgust is by cancelling. And not giving any money (shopping elsewhere)

[liberalmuse]

52. Good for you!

I didn’t have a WaPo subscription but unsubscribed from their emails and cancelled/requested deletion of my Amazon account. That the WaPo has decided to go this route should alarm everyone.

[Pompoy]

53. I subscribe to WAPO, NYT, The Boston Globe for $4/month each now for years

Actually my promotional subscription to the Globe was raised and they didn't bother to ask me to renew it for $4 again when I was cancelling. But a couple days later they were offering new subscribers 6 months for $1, so I got it with my son's name. Lol.
I don't get to use them much, so that's what I tell them when canceling and informing them that anything more than that doesn't make sense to me. I also get cheap subscriptions with The New York Post and Vanity Fair.
Things like the Atlantic who send me emails every day, I get to read them in the email or I use https://www.archivebuttons.com/ to get past paywalls on other articles where I won't get subscriptions for.
If I want to share an article I use this link so others don't get blocked with a paywall to articles from NYT and WAPO. You might want to do that also if you want to keep contributing in that way.

[Pompoy]

59. Oh, just caught up to what got you to boycott WAPO.

Their decision to not give an editorial board endorsement. Are they for real? The WAPO and the LA Times rely on MAGAts?
No way, they lose more from the left than whatever they are afraid to lose from MAGAts, so this isn't about protecting their business.
It's about the owners putting their fingers on the scale.

[Red Mountain]

55. I suscribe to The Atlantic

they seem to be practicing real journalism.

[barbtries]

64. i do too

and I agree.

[aggiesal]

57. I did too. See my latest post in the home page n/t

[tccturtle]

61. There are PLENTY of ways around that

To start, just go to an anonymous and private search page like DuckDuckGo or StartPage.com, and NOT engines like Google. Search engines like these don't filter out query responses, like for example, that Google does. After all, Google and other major search engines don't want to help consumers to circumvent paywalls that they can make money off of. Plus the best thing is that your searches aren't tracked. StartPage.com still gets some off its data from Google, but it just doesn't filter out respones.

*One other off topic side note, Google is currently embroiled in pending litigation regarding it's Incognito Mode, which as it turns out is far from incognito, as searches and web traffic done in incognito were still being tracked. But that is another can of worms. You can easily search online for more on that.

Back on topic, when you go to my recommended sites above, search for 'bypass paywall', 'paywall readers', or 'paywall scrubbers'. Once you do that, just copy the URL from the article into the paywall reader. It doesn't always work, but that's a very low percentage of the time. I was going to post a list of paywall readers aka scrubbers for everyone, but I don't want potentially get my hand slapped by any DU rules.

[UpInArms]

68. I cancelled WP a while back

Canceling Amazon is on my to do list

[Dear_Prudence]

69. Inspiring move on your part.

So I just cancelled too.

[soldierant]

70. Just in case they come up with

something worth seeing, you can always go to archive.is and paste in the link. I am a night owl, so generally when I do that there is already an archive link and I just use that one rather than creating a new one.

[Ilsa]

71. I can't cancel my Amazon & Prime account. I'm pretty much

"shut in" with my son. Prime makes shopping much much easier for me, and I watch alot on Prime, too.

[Tree Lady]

72. I remember about 15 yrs ago we were all

not shopping at Walmart because it wasn't local or really can't remember all the reasons. My older mom said to me, I can't afford to have principles like that.

It really made me think about some of the judgements we pass on others here.

I think if someone wants to do something they should but let others decide for themselves wthout shaming.

I quit WA Post few months ago but it was because I wasn't really reading it.

I have Amazon and Prime and don't intend on giving it up, I have used Walmarts online service for my mom and I prefer Amazon over it, has more of everything to choose from.

[Ilsa]

74. Thank you. I think I get why

the billionaire owners are worried, even frightened by threats of incarceration. But they have enough money to fight back, even raise their own private armies.

Hell, wouldn't that be something to watch? Reality TV with Bezos Army vs Musk Army, or Prime Army vs X Army. If the US continues to permit excessive acquisition of personal wealth, it seems like this is a future possible scenario.

[Tree Lady]

75. Could happen if they don't go after

Billionaires for things they do knowing they go up against a ton of lawyers.

[FakeNoose]

80. Do we know for sure that Jeff Bezos is the reason for WaPo's failure to endorse?

I don't know that he is the reason, and I've read that he doesn't interfere much with the managing of the newspaper anyway. Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions here, I don't know.

Like most newspapers and newsmedia outlets these days, the editorial decisions are being usurped by the advertising sales dept. They insist that certain editorial prerogatives are no longer viable, because the advertisers (the real customers) will quit buying ad space and put the paper out of business. Same thing with the news broadcasters.

I believe that's the real problem here, not Jeff Bezos interfering. But I could be wrong.

[bdamomma]

73. In regards

to the Washington Post not endorsing anyone, I took note of what someone posted here on DU. That we are so close to state run media, now that's a scary thought.

And how people are going stop using Amazon/Amazon Prime, what did we do when we didn't have Amazon???

VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jrthin]

78. Good for you. Thank you. These cancellations aren't easy because they

are so tied into habit and comfort. I, too, am now looking into alternatives to Amazon Prime.

[1WorldHope]

79. Thank you for posting your cancellation. I just cancelled our Amazon too!

I was totally addicted, but lately I didn't feel like they were really a good deal anymore. Thanks to everyone who posted too. You all helped me do this!

[Trueblue Texan]

82. I was gone all day Friday when this story broke...

...I'm not even sure what you're talking about...something about Bezos? Can anyone provide a link?

[barbtries]

83. here you go.

https://wapo.st/3NHowEs

this is the original, bullshit announcement. Much more available at the Post and elsewhere now.

i did post this with no context. I remember back in the 90s when i was working so much it was a week before i found out Princess Diana died. This news on Friday rocked me to the core.