This is a business, and without premium subscribers there would be no articles and no site. Many people go right to the boards and don't see the front page, so I am posting a lot of our premium stuff on the free boards so some of you can see what else is on the site.
I don't see it as a sales pitch, but even if that's what it is, this isn't the only place you get sales pitches. They are everywhere with everything. We run a ton of free content on this site, but without premium, we wouldn't exist.
I appreciate you posting your thoughts, but I'd hope you understand where we are coming from. Our mission is to provide the best journalism we can, but we don't work for free as I am sure you don't work for free. It costs money to do business, and that would be the case even if this wasn't our jobs and we did work for free.