Someone had to be paid to write the obit, someone was paid to edit it, someone was paid to put it online, the servers cost money, so does the power, so does the connectivity and other infrastructure to put it online - none of this is free - heck, 30 years ago, you would have needed to buy a paper to read it.

Do I like the rates the NYT charges? no, I'd be happy to pay 5 dollars a month so I can access the top 5 newspapers of record though.