[_throwawayyyyy1]

one way i think about it ... imagine if google, facebook & twitter could somehow physically no longer link to news stories on any of their properties ... like if there was some magical switch that was thrown ... how much would their traffic fall, and how much would their revenue fall? I could easily see that being in the multi billions industry wide. so in that sense they are making money from news content.

[marstall]

it's like a pyramid scheme - web firms stripping value from news companies until there is none left - and then what? Most of the interesting content on the internet is, in fact, generated by professional newsgatherers. Take that away and the web itself loses enormous, enormous value.