Bypass Paywall: So this happened !!!
Origin Story
Read more about how I launched this:
On the morning of 7th April 2022 at 10:30 am IST, I received an email from Chrome Webstore.
I have been getting emails from Chrome Webstore for quite some time now for the reviews people leave on my extension so I thought why would this be different. But, I was wrong, the title of the email that I received read something like this:
I was taken aback. I had recently crossed 60,000+ users and was inching very close to 70,000 users. The extension was used in numerous countries and almost every day someone would reach out to me to say thanks or give feedback. I thought everything was going well.
When I read the email in more detail, things became a little clear. The extension was removed because someone complained that my extension was violating Medium paywall rules and was accessing the content behind their paywall.
Here’s a clarification:
The extension in no way accesses any content directly behind the Medium Paywall.
In fact, Medium itself exposes all the premium articles to Google without anyone’s knowledge for SEO purposes.
Google in return caches the content on its own server and starts showing the article in Google Cache or AMP pages on mobile.
The extension simply gets the article page content from Google Cache and shows it to the concerned user.
Technically, Medium should not do this and only premium users should be able to access the content directly without Google in between.
Current Status:
Since the extension is hosted on Chrome Webstore, I shall have to abide by the rules of the platform, as a result, the extension shall not serve any results for any articles which are on Medium, since that is the site under violation.
Shameless Plug 🤪:
If you wish to learn and get-started quickly with serverless tech, I have self-published an ebook on Amazon (https://www.amazon.in/Building-Serverless-Applications-Step-Step-ebook/dp/B0BXQLJ6BJ). Paper back version is already Work in progress.
Link : https://www.amazon.in/Building-Serverless-Applications-Step-Step-ebook/dp/B0BXQLJ6BJ
Please feel free to buy it and get started. Do share your feedback
