October 11, 2017

Google has finally ditched its ‘first click free’ program in favor of a publisher-friendly tool the company is calling ‘flexible sampling,’ reports The New York Times. With ‘first click free,’ readers can access paywalled content by searching for a particular headline or relevant keywords through Google Search or Google News, a frustrating workaround for publishers with metered or hard paywalls. ‘While research has shown that people are becoming more accustomed to paying for news, the sometimes painful process of signing up for a subscription can be a turn off…’