Not all news and content creation can be done as a side job or hobby. The people who do journalism, create content, or support that goal of quality journalism need to make a living somehow.
It's entirely plausible that those things are not profitable enterprises any more. A user doesn't have to surrender his/her privacy to prop up a dying industry.
It's possible that journalism becomes supported by patronage the way art once was.
Absolutely. And I wholeheartedly think that enough people support high quality journalism. See the 1 million online subscribers to the NY Times.
The majority of online journalism seems to be regurgitated news agency reports and stuff that no one needs (or can get free from communities elsewhere).
lots of forums, blogs and aggregators perfected clickbait and cat picture distributions a decade ago.
You picked a particularly terrible example, since the Times hasn't stopped struggling since introducing an online subscription, and most depressingly, is starting to experiment with the same clickbait bullshit that Buzzfeed popularized (things like increasingly questionably labeled "sponsored stories").
It's possible that journalism becomes supported by patronage the way art once was.