I've thought about trying to solve this problem with software, but it feels like a line we probably shouldn't cross. Hence the current answer: it's fine for users to help each other read articles. That seems unimpeachable, whereas having HN officially undermine paywalls seems like a Schrödinger can of worms if not a classical one.
The news sites have made the economic calculation that allowing access to traffic from content aggregators like Google (which is the price of being discoverable by Google) is worthwhile.
The idea that only sufficiently large aggregators/traffic sources should get a special pass seems preposterous; anyone trying to enforce would be engaged in downright anticompetitive behavior.
The cat is already dead, can we please open the box & acknowledge the source of the foul smell?
Maybe you can automatically put paywall bypass instructions in the "TEXT" portion of the URL submissions?
edit: The auto-generated bypass instructions will get the top-sorted/top-comment favoritism that we normally try to avoid from users.
If sites don't want people to bypass paywalls, then they would not allow "special" ways to bypass paywalls. The fact that some paywalls have special referrer bypass rules reeks of financially motivated favoritism and entrenched interests preventing competition; the next search engine startup to be created is going to have a rough time of it.
