The Austin American-Statesman will remove its monthly article limit for nonsubscribers, its editor announced.

Readers “who aren’t yet subscribers” of statesman.com and hookem.com will no longer be limited in the number of articles they can read in a 30-day period.

The Statesman will lean on subscriber-only articles to convert readers instead. “Subscriber-only stories have led far more people to sign up as subscribers than the monthly limits on our other work,” executive editor Manny García said in the announcement.

The stories currently reserved for subscribers include “in-depth investigative reporting and expert analysis.” The newspaper’s Twitter account highlighted a couple of recent examples:

A deep-dive into homicide rates in Austin and how police force size affects crime (our reporting found no direct correlation): https://t.co/7rubBytBBV

A look at what’s to come for La Mexicana Bakery owner Jesus Becerra, who is retiring after 30 yrs. https://t.co/M1ZLQOGHah 5/

— Austin Statesman (@statesman) February 1, 2022

Since subscriber-only stories require registration to access, you could argue the Statesman is erecting a more solid wall than it had with a metered paywall. (The latter, of course, can be skirted with tricks like an incognito window or clearing cookies.)

The Statesman is hoping the change will encourage free readers to return to the site more often, now that they know they won’t run out of stories. (“[We] hope to become more of a centerpoint in your daily routine,” as regional content strategist Jennifer Hefty put it in the announcement.) Unlimited access will also give the news org more opportunities to show the value of their journalism, García said. That means additional chances to nudge people into hitting “subscribe,” too.

You can read more here.