| > This is good logic. Definitely better logic than bringing unrelated business models into the conversation. Do you take a subscription, when you enter a restaurant? Will they refuse to stop charging you after you stop calling at their fine establishment? I expect the NY Times bullpen would be disappointed to know it has such poor defenders among the public. Surely their material helps develop better logical skills. Then again... > So two wrongs make a right? More like two can play the market game. Except they have access to better capital markets than most, so there is a natural power imbalance to correct. > So when it comes time to pay their server bill, office rent, employee payroll, etc. etc. they will just forward goodwill No, they will forward the money of their wealthy and influential old-money owners: https://web.archive.org/web/20201101011614/https://www.vanit... In other cases, it will be the money of new-money owners, Russian oligarchs, cult abusers, etc etc. But not to their interns, of course - for them it's goodwill and love all the way, I bet. > journalism isn't free. Indeed it isn't - in most cases you're paying for it every day through the political choices that these privately-owned media channels support and legitimize. > What would it do to the incomes in your field if people were able to just take your work product without paying? It depends - when the value of my product is indeed that it gets in the hands of everyone that matters, regardless of whether they paid for it or not, there are many ways I could leverage this influence into other stuff behind the scenes. Which is indeed what most of the media-supporting barons tend to do. One of the best tricks the devil played on people is convincing them that conservative media like the NYTimes is a bastion of progressive society. |