The assertion is not necessarily wrong, it's that it misses the point. It implies that the natural order is that 'we do the content, you do the ads.' You aren't doing your job, that's why we are failing.

That kind of attitude lets news-people stay high browed & complaining about how suits are ruining their content, so long as they are bringing in the ad-dollars. The new paradigm (as the author goes on to explain) has the dumb suits replaced with the dumb public ("The real question is for the public, not journalists: Does it want to pony up for news,...?") The constant is 'real news.' The world better hurry up and find them a business model or you'll be sorry.

If I step back and look at the whole thing from the outside I'm not worried about democracy and the flow of information being destroyed by a mostly free web.

Taking a step even further back, I would note that there is systemic risk in a business model where you're main advantages are disconnected from your revenue sources. They were never selling news. People have never bout news. They were a way for companies to interact with their customers. They are no longer such a good way of doing this.

No, there's no counterexample on the horizon, and I have full confidence that there never ever will be.

Seriously: Who uses words like "never" in serious opinion pieces -- especially pieces that run in the NYT?

It's possible that the article itself may be a counterexample: NYT is running ads alongside this story. So NYT is at least trying to be profitable from online ads.