Before the internet, what would today be called a “paywall” was just a place where people could buy a newspaper or magazine. Your subscription or newsstand purchase didn’t pay for every far-flung reporter; media outlets subsidized access to readers with advertising and other revenue streams. But though the barrier to entry was relatively low, it was still a barrier. You had to acquire the physical object hosting the material, and unless you went to the library every day or got your hands on a discarded copy in a coffee shop, you would have to pay for it.
Once all articles got posted on websites, tension grew between the idea that information wants to be free and the need for reporters and editors and production teams to afford food and shelter. At first, legacy subscriptions and digital advertising covered the nut; I remember the New York Times and Washington Post segmenting stories into sections so readers had to click repeatedly to finish them, ringing up more ad impressions. But Google and Facebook robbed publishers of the ad revenue that made this (sort of) work, and ever since, media companies big and small have been grasping for an alternative.
They have mostly failed. Between 2004 and 2022, over 2,100 newspapers have gone out of business, according to data from the University of North Carolina. New media pivots from words to video and back again have proven disastrous. Layoffs have touched everyone in this industry; friends and colleagues habitually call me asking for advice or referrals for hiring.
Those of us remaining to report the news have settled on a noble idea: A community of readers can pay to get the information they need. Sometimes the “reader” is one rich person keeping things alive, but that usually ends in tears. A broader base of support is far more sustainable, and there are several outlets, from my site The American Prospect to the one you’re reading right now, that are making this work.
In some ways, it’s a throwback to the pre-internet era, or even the premodern era of patronage. But the pay-to-play trend in journalism is happening at a time of runaway income and wealth inequality, when the top 10% of income earners account for nearly half of all the spending. This has created a strange paradox: The average news consumer today has more available to read than at any time in human history, yet less ability to understand what’s really going on.