Honestly as a maritime nation, I don't quite understand why the UK isn't leading on launching from barges: with so much coastline, there are potential spaceports all over the country, with associated potential employment opportunities etc. etc. And with such restricted space the nimbyism here is always going off the scale. Far better to neutralise these people by moving it offshore.
HN expects high quality discussion. It would definitely be difficult to get consistent high quality articles that lead to high quality discussion without well paid journalists.
As it stands, viewing fees/paywalls are one of very few existing ways to ensure journalists are paid at all for their work.