Can't upvote this enough. If you want to protect content, make the checks server-side. Security must be server-side first, no exceptions. Doing anything else is asking for tech savy people with debuggers (or "view source" in this case) working around it.
You can get into a race with your users renaming javascript variables or changing CSS classes, or implementing the most advanced javascript obfuscator that exists today, but this is a waste of time.
There are any number of ways to get around it. Thats a known, regardless of what you do.
Rather than expend time and resources locking this up as much as possible its accepted that X number of people will do whatever they want.
What is a little frustrating is people thinking they've totally hacked the NYT subscription model and subverted our cleverly crafted lock-down methods.
However, its been stated publicly at several pay grades above me, that is there is an organized concerted effort to work-around the subscription then we have to act on that. Not just in a legal way, but also by developers working to lock-down the site more and more.
As I said, I'd rather work on constructive projects instead of that.
It is easy for anyone who knows how to View Source to get to the content. I just wish they'd stop thinking they're all l33t and subversive when its just a little sad (to me at least).
I think I'd ultimately feel better if I just ignored this stuff.
Come on, this has nothing to do with "expending time". It's about SEO. Otherwise they would take the minimal effort to serve a different page to people above the threshold.
1. One or more developers working full-time on fixing bugs and working on new projects/features
2. One or more developers working full-time updating Class and ID names and staying on top of the latest Plugins and Greasemonkey Scripts...
No, seriously - make a choice.