Historically cloaking was considered bad because a consumer would click expecting a particular piece of content or user experience while being delivered an experience which differed dramatically. As publishers have become more aggressive with paywalls they've put their brands & user trust in the back seat in an attempt to increase revenue per visit. Below are 2 screenshots from one of the more extreme versions I have seen recently. The first is a subscribe-now modal which shows by default when you visit the newspaper website. The second is the page as it appears after you close the modal. Basically all page content is cloaked other than ads and navigation. The content is hidden - cloaked. That sort of behavior would not only have a horrible impact on time on site metrics , but it would teach users not to click on their sites in the future, if users even have any recall of the publisher brand. The sort of disdain that user experience earns will cause the publishers to lose relevancy even faster.…