Financial Times subscription
News publication in Money & business
People recommend it for solid, well-researched reporting and factual news. Common caveats: small print font, a difficult paywall and high cost.
People recommend it for solid, well-researched reporting and factual news. Common caveats: small print font, a difficult paywall and high cost.
51 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 32
- criticize it
- 19
- approval share
- 63%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 2 years
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 32 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Solid, well-researched reporting
“has shocked me many times over on the quality of its reporting”
Comment from 4 Feb 2026 in “How Jeff Bezos Brought Down the Washington Post” “They both seem to still have solid journalism.”
Comment from 21 Jun 2026 in “NSA director: 'Mythos "broke into almost all of our classified systems in hours"” “Both are well written and well researched”
Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “Delayed Gratification – Proud to Be 'Last to Breaking News'” - Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Micropayments as a reality check for news sites”
- Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Is liberal democracy in terminal decline?”
- Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “US economy sheds 92,000 jobs in February in sharp slide”
- Comment from 6 Jun 2026 in “Police in England and Wales told to halt AI use in court statements”
Strong finance and markets coverage
“Don't Bloomberg & FT have a number of well-written, informative articles every month?”
Comment from 21 Aug 2026 in “Kagi added a setting for removing paywalled links from search results” “There's a ton of good coverage of the precious metals run up in FT this past week.”
Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “Silver plunges 30% in worst day since 1980, gold tumbles” “FT explicitly noted that OpenAI has $billions in cash on hand”
Comment from 1 Sep 2026 in “How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?” - Comment from 1 Oct 2026 in “The Beclowning of Scott Bessent”
Factual news without sensationalism
“I've found that they have incentives to keep their news as close to just presenting the pure information as possible”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “I Stopped Following the News” “the small remaining group of people who actively don't want to be lied to”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “Is The Economist Always Wrong?” “it's aimed at people who have a financial interest in accurate news”
Comment from 6 Jun 2026 in “Police in England and Wales told to halt AI use in court statements” Used alongside other news sources
“my main news sources are an amalgam of Reuters, BBC World Service, Al Jazeera English, Financial Times”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “Ask HN: What are your go to sources for relatively unbiased global news?” “I find the Week and the Financial Times to be significantly better.”
Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “Delayed Gratification – Proud to Be 'Last to Breaking News'” “my favorite news sources for the war is, oddly enough, FT”
Comment from 8 Apr 2026 in “Iran demands Bitcoin fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Font too small to read
“the micro font has gotten too difficult to read”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “FT printed an error for 18 months and nobody noticed” “But the font is so small - I gave it up.”
Comment from 16 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: What physical publication do you still buy?” “the font got too small to enjoy it”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “Is The Economist Always Wrong?” - Comment from 6 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: Favorite Print Magazines?”
Paywall and ad problems
“makes me accept cookies from their 46 “technology” (advertising) partners before showing me that the article is behind a paywall anyway”
Comment from 21 Sep 2026 in “AI chatbots give wrong answers to financial queries 'most of the time'” “Financial times does as well for me on certain browsers but not others. Pretty annoying.”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “SoundCloud has banned VPN access” “the FTs boundary defeats my usual archive.is wall jumping”
Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Why must a socialist also be woke?” - Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “The A in AGI Stands for Ads”
- Comment from 15 Jan 2026 in “Nvesting with GIFs: A Visual Guide”
Expensive for what it offers
“that was nice to have a physical newspaper, but it was too expensive in the end”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “How Jeff Bezos Brought Down the Washington Post” “540$ for your first year to read FT!”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Why Affordability and the Vibecession Are Real Economic Problems” Biased or opinion-heavy reporting
“They should stick to facts. This just sounds like sour grapes and these articles are useless rants.”
Comment from 13 Jun 2026 in “Elon Musk is a real-life Bond villain” “Thank their nonlibertarian (anti-liberal?) opinion pieces that never fail to squeeze a giggle”
Comment from 22 May 2026 in “Your Most Improbable Life” “the worst offenders: Wall Street Journal, Financial Times (FT) and Bloomberg most notably”
Comment from 4 Feb 2026 in “Ask HN: "Marking" Paywalled Articles Posted on HN” - Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “Michael Burry's Manifesto: Why I'm Short Palantir”
What people recommend instead
The same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial Times subscriptionThis page | 32 | 19 | 63% | 11 | 2 yrs3 owners | — |
| The Information | 5 | 3 | 63% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 60 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the media you actually want for this case are the FT”
“makes me accept cookies from their 46 “technology” (advertising) partners before showing me that the article is behind a paywall anyway”
“his post about the exact same data was noticeably more confusing and less illuminating than theirs”
“FT explicitly noted that OpenAI has $billions in cash on hand”
“Don't Bloomberg & FT have a number of well-written, informative articles every month?”
“But the font is so small - I gave it up.”
“the FTs boundary defeats my usual archive.is wall jumping”
“Both are well written and well researched”
“I find the Week and the Financial Times to be significantly better.”
“You should definitely consider supporting your favourite news sources directly.”
“some of the least worst news sources remaining, once in a while”
“the small remaining group of people who actively don't want to be lied to”
“the content of the articles feels better”
“the font got too small to enjoy it”
“They both seem to still have solid journalism.”
“They should stick to facts. This just sounds like sour grapes and these articles are useless rants.”
“the reporting is moderately better than other papers”
“it's aimed at people who have a financial interest in accurate news”
“Thank their nonlibertarian (anti-liberal?) opinion pieces that never fail to squeeze a giggle”
“my favorite news sources for the war is, oddly enough, FT”
“To be fair FT is a fantastic source.”
“my main news sources are an amalgam of Reuters, BBC World Service, Al Jazeera English, Financial Times”
“the financial times does this pretty well”
“540$ for your first year to read FT!”
“like WSJ, Bloomb, FT, and many other bad actors”
“that was nice to have a physical newspaper, but it was too expensive in the end”
“it is possible to get an affordable FT subscription to their digital version of the print newspaper”
“has shocked me many times over on the quality of its reporting”
“expensive with a professional audience, not the general public”
“the worst offenders: Wall Street Journal, Financial Times (FT) and Bloomberg most notably”
“There's a ton of good coverage of the precious metals run up in FT this past week.”
“I've found that they have incentives to keep their news as close to just presenting the pure information as possible”
“simply because their readerships have financial interest in actually knowing what's going on in the world”
“the FT provides generally sound content”
“even FT require ad blockers even if you're subscribed”
“FT has one of the worst paywalls i've seen”
“the font is so small it's no longer fun to read”
“Financial times does as well for me on certain browsers but not others. Pretty annoying.”
“Journalism is preferred to someone ranting from an armchair IMO.”
“the micro font has gotten too difficult to read”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.