Paywall pirates
As modern media entities embrace subscription models, they hold hope, in a world where an abundance of web content is available for free, that they can once again convince individuals to pay for news. The strategy of the New York Times has been to go for scale, branching out into cooking, sports journalism and even games — acquiring viral hits like Wordle to accompany the core journalism. But habits are hard to form, and break, and paying for news (particularly digital-only news) remains an alien concept in many countries.
According to the Digital News Report by Reuters Institute, 21% of people surveyed in the US said they had paid for news online in the past year, fewer than in Norway and Sweden. However, the New York Times can find solace in not being the "London Times" — only 9% of surveyed individuals in the UK reported paying for news in the previous year, likely because of the prominent public service media entity the BBC.
A trusted voice
One area where the United States distinguishes itself is in the willingness to pay for independent journalism from individuals — 8% of respondents reported paying for a newsletter (we promise to remain free) and 5% pay for content from a podcaster or YouTuber. If the 2010s were the era of scale, when smaller news organizations were squeezed out by the bigger players during the industry decline, the 2020s could be the era of the individual, as platforms like Substack and Medium build platforms for writers looking to strike out on their own.
Into the unknown
Of course, just as major news organizations got a handle on how to distribute on the internet, AI has emerged. Tools like ChatGPT could level the playing field, allowing smaller teams to do more with less, but their usage also threatens a potential "race to the bottom". One news outlet could report a story, and suddenly hundreds of sites regurgitate the information in a slightly different way with AI — amplifying any potential mistakes in the original reporting.
