But maybe it's worth paying just to show publishers that it's viable. It's a rough chicken/egg problem.
I’m hopeful that fixing the business model of news on the web will cause them to step back a bit from polarizing clickbait and back towards factual reporting, which I think should help reduce the polarization in the political sphere.
I worry that this idea won't work until
- Someone can prove that the increase in number of paid subscribers will offset the decrease in $/sub, and...
- The subscription company is effectively owned by the big news orgs, so that they feel comfortable effectively handing over control of their subscriber base. Similar to how Hulu was started as a partnership between a few big media companies.