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Comment by denkmoon | Hacker News Reader

How many people actually pay for news? I certainly don't, not in the traditional sense of paying for WSJ or NYT subscription (I donate to youtubers that cover current affairs).

Most revenue from news must come from advertising, and I think advertising is a poisoned chalice. It makes the news organisations beholden to corporations they should be reporting on, and fulfils the adage "news is what they don't want you to hear, everything else is PR".

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Chomsky and Herman discuss this in Manufacturing Consent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

Good video / overview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M

For the NY Times, the assertion that most of their revenue comes from advertising just isn't true. 60% of their revenue now comes from subscription fees, and advertising's slice of their revenue has shrunk consistently.

https://dashboards.trefis.com/no-login-required/5gNimvTR/New...

To be fair, getting high percentage revenue from subscriptions is a very recent phenomenon, and the NYT is one of the exclusive few (arguably the only one) that is finding this strategy and trend to be viable.

I think they're mainly benefiting from the Trump era. When it ends, I think their subscription numbers will plummet, since there won't be so many shocking things happening every day.

> I donate to youtubers that cover current affairs.

Where do those YouTubers source from? Most likely it’s more established news organizations.

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