Tom's Hardware Guide Goes Private

DX writes "I have been reading how Tom was taking a portion of his site to a subscriber system. People were not reacting well. Now the main page has a crazy password auth on it..." Cool site. Too bad, but web sites need to make money to survive (first hand experience here) and people hate banner ads with a passion (dozens of emails a week over here to prove that too) so some sites have no choice to go subscription-based. I won't do pay-for-access here, I hate them with a passion, but peoples opposition to banner ads drive sites to subscriptions. That blows- if the ~15 sites I visit daily went to subscriptions, I couldn't afford to subscribe to all of 'em. Besides, subscribing is a hassle... I want my clicks to go straight to a page without any registration or subscription hassles. I'll take a banner ad on a free page over a subscription any time. What do you guys think? Update Andrew Shugg wrote in to tell us that the old URLs are subscription based, but Tom's Hardware.com is going to remain free, also Tom has written A Letter addressing the fuss.