The fact is, despite some politicians declaring it a fundamental right, the news does not provide enough value to most people for them to pay for it.

There is an absolute glut of content out there, way way more than anybody wants or needs. Much of it is less than worthless, it's actually of negative value because it's designed to hijack your attention. Remove the infusion of ad money that is producing this, let it settle to the things that people are actually willing to pay for, and we'll all be better off.

If i pay for a news site, i would go directly to it, and i would not care about hundreds of other paywalled results that i would not pay for.