What to do with content behind a paywall?
We let our curators decide whether to share content that is located behind a paywall or not. Criteria that can help with a decision are whether a significant number of a curator's Scope followers is expected to be paying subscribers of a paywall content, whether the teaser of the content (visible to non-subscribers) already offers insightful information, and whether a curator has been sharing links to content behind a paywall multiple times before. The more often followers without access to that type of content are being confronted with it, the bigger is the risk that they lose interest and will chose to unfollow.
It's also important to distinguish between soft and hard paywalls. A hard paywall is one which completely blocks access for non-subscribers, such as at ft.com. A soft paywall usually allows non-subscribers to access a limited number of content items every month.
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We advise to curate content behind hard paywalls only as an exception. Soft paywalls are less problematic. From a user perspective, it often is enough to open an article in the browser's incognito/privacy mode to access content which otherwise would have been blocked. However, as a curator, it is better not to assume that every user is aware of this workaround.
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