I have the same problem, but i suspect this is because i told my Firefox to lie about Referrer: headers (by fiddling with about:config). I'll see if messing around with those settings helps.
I don't think it is but I'm starting to wish it were. A large number of articles on HN come from WSJ, NYT, Medium, and Bloomberg. 2 solutions come to mind:
1. Have a "site subscription" where links referred from your site are not paywalled. And you would pay a subscription fee to be referrer-whitelisted on the paywall; the subscription rate could be highly debated.
2. Have a "multi-subscription package" where I pay one organization, and they take my payment, slice it up, and distribute it to several dozen news companies. The administrative fee for doing this would come into question.
I agree that writers, webhosts, and other employees of these news companies should get paid; this isn't a product that's made for free. I don't really want to have to track a handful of inexpensive subscriptions. And the subscription path for NYT and WSJ is unclear - I haven't found the page where I can simply buy a 1-year subscription; only the "12 weeks for $12" deal.
You know, I hear this all the time. And honestly, this isn't meant to be snarky, but I don't understand how wanting to be paid for your work is a silly business model.
I'm starting to feel like we should crowdfund a WSJ subscription for HN, or something similar. How much traffic does WSJ get directly from here?