National Observer upgrades paywall system to annoy its most loyal readers

National Observer has changed paywall providers to annoy readers. Now that we have your attention, here's the fact: we HATE to annoy you. But a great benefit of this annoyance is that it will make accessing National Observer's excellent reporting simpler for everyone. And that's what it's all about. So, let's get into it.

• The new system's called Tinypass.
• Tinypass offers more payment options —you can sign up through your Amazon or PayPal account, major credit cards
• "Day passes" have replaced "pay as you go". They cost $1.99. You can even pay with Bitcoin.
• Subscription prices increased by $1 monthly due to the upgrade.
• If you were subscribed through our former provider, CoinTent, your subscription with CoinTent will cancel automatically by the end of the month.

IMPORTANT SUBSCRIBER INFORMATION HERE

Monthly subscribers

You received an email from Tinypass with a temporary password. If you don't see the email in your inbox, please check junk mail.

The email contains your temporary password.

Now go to National Observer's Subscribe page. Click on "Sign in". Input your email and your temporary password. Done.

For the extra hassle and price increase, National Observer is giving all monthly subscribers a free month. TinyPass will prompt you to purchase a subscription after your free month. But, remember, for this all to work, you must sign up for Tinypass.

Yearly subscribers

Tinypass has emailed you a temporary password. Once you retrieve it from your email, go to National Observer's Subscribe page. Click "Sign in". Input your email and temporary password. Done.

We've granted you 13 months on the new system, but you must sign in to start. This means you won't need to input payment information until September 2017.

If you created a wallet on CoinTent, you get a refund of your remaining funds.

CoinTent will give you back the remaining balance in your wallet. You should see this refund by the end of the month.

Kickstarter supporters

Your three months of free access has expired. Subscribe today for ongoing access to National Observer.

We welcome your feedback and questions. Please contact us with your concerns, cheers or unanswered questions.

Now, John Oliver will talk with you about why we admire journalists as heroes but don't really want to pay them. Readers-who-haven't-subscribed-yet, we hope you will be inspired to sign up now. We can't do this without all of you.

John Oliver explains why even if this change is annoying, you should set up your Tinypass account at your earliest convenience. (Seriously, that message is hidden between the punchlines.)