[mcmcmc]

If people don’t want to pay, then they don’t actually value the news. I pay for publications that I trust and want to continue reading.

The key is finding a niche where the news organization can produce quality reporting that people actually value. “Free News” is just another ad business.

[kanelincoln]

Do you think that the desire to pay for a thing is the only indicator of whether that thing is valued? If not, what do you mean by "[people] don't actually value the news"?

[mcmcmc]

I think it’s an indicator of demand which shows comparative value in the context of household spending. If you have enough money to cover your basic needs and then some, but you choose to put that extra money towards something else, that reveals a preference for that thing over other products/services you could choose to purchase.

If you only want something when you don’t have to pay for it and would never actually buy it even if you had the budget, then yeah I would contend you don’t actually want it. You’re just taking it because it’s there, and you can.

“Free” services are fundamentally anticompetitive markets, which can work if it’s a non-profit or government service. When it’s a for-profit business you get perverse incentives and network effects concentrating wealth and power in smaller and smaller pockets, extracting it from users instead of an exchange of no value with customers.

For-profit free news is the problem.

[carlosjobim]

It's a great indicator.

[troupo]

Significantly fewer people would pay for objective reporting than for, say, Fox News.

Partly because Fox News would be much cheaper.