Ask HN: Why not auto replace paywall links with web archive links?

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;LnakG" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;LnakG</a><p>On HN, linking to archive.org has traditionally been considered a user activity and some people have a bookmarklet for that purpose using this URL:<p>javascript:void(open(&#x27;<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.today&#x2F;?run=1&amp;url=&#x27;+encodeURIComponent(document.location)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.today&#x2F;?run=1&amp;url=&#x27;+encodeURIComponent(documen...</a>))<p>If a submission doesn&#x27;t matter enough for at least one user to do that, it probably doesn&#x27;t matter enough to be on HN.<p>YMMV.<p>But this is Hacker news.

Don&#x27;t want to be on the hook for contributory copyright infringement?

I&#x27;ve suggested this too. At the least the archive link could just be added to the control row (immediately under the title) instead of being a crufty comment.

Why allow archive links to paywalled articles at all? Pay for the content or don’t read it.

or just have a bot that auto coomments the archive link. plausible deniability.

paywalls are there for a reason...the more you facilitate breaking them the more you resemble thepiratebay...and you dont want HN to end like that