[orangegreen]

I am very happy many news sites are now behind paywalls. There is now less of an incentive to drive revenue via clickbait or "picking a fight" as many tabloid journalists are wont to do.

There appears to be some kind of concern that this will put people in their own subscription bubbles. Please. Having a subscription to your city's newspaper or subscribing to a documentary streaming service is a far healthier way of ingesting content than getting put into algorithmic engagement bubbles via social media.

To be fair, most print newspapers were subsidized not necessarily by costing money or traditional advertising, but by classified advertising. Maybe news sites can figure out classifieds next.

[_moof]

I worked for a few different newspapers in the early '00s, including a nationwide conglomerate. Craigslist was the end. Papers have been struggling to make ends meet ever since.

[BitwiseFool]

Which is unfortunate because the Craigslist experience is terrible and 'Craig' doesn't want to update the site. It's chock full of spam, phone repair ads, and dozens of the same thing listed in every search. You would honestly think some employee could devise a way to detect and remove such things, but no.

I don't even care that the design of the site is 'old', I just want better listings.

[rchaud]

Stop by the comment section of the NYTimes' Facebook page sometime. Now that people can't read the articles without paying, the fights start off of the headline alone.

I subscribe, so I see the NYT's on-site comments, which are of far better quality.

[_moof]

> the fights start off of the headline alone

I think we have mountains of evidence that this happens whether or not there's a paywall. :)

[tannhaeuser]

In principle, I'm with you. Problem, though, is that even with subscriptions Google plus a million other crap companies are getting my clicks, and I still get Taboola shite padded after articles. So I cancelled my subscription to a high-profile newspaper/site just the other day. Quality journalism is not compatible with that shit for me as a matter of principle.