Saila's Miscellany

The gaps in metered paywalls are deliberate and so, presumably, are their typically low heights—a determined jumper can usually get over them. Many paywalls can be circumvented easily by switching browsers or clearing the browser cache. A wall made high enough to stop these methods would likely not result in many more people paying, only fewer people reading.

The purpose of a metered paywall is not to keep out everyone who is not willing to pay. It does help compensate for declining ad revenues, but in the long term its more important purpose will be to shift expectations away from the presumption that information is always free online.