If you have something important to say, don't say it in a paywalled publication
Tech&#x27;s position on the issue of how to fund journalism online is fundamentally incoherent.<p>After 20 years of experiments, there are only two models that have been consistently proven to work: restricting access to paying customers only (a.k.a. paywalling), and open access combined with heavy, invasive advertising (both the traditional kind, and more insidious kinds like clickbait headlines and sponsored content). That&#x27;s it. Those are the only models anyone&#x27;s found that don&#x27;t lead to bankruptcy.<p>The problem is that tech insists that <i>both</i> these models are morally unacceptable. Put up a paywall, and you&#x27;ll get a parade of tech influencers denouncing you as a greedy elitist. <i>Don&#x27;t</i> put up a paywall, and you&#x27;ll get the same parade of tech influencers denouncing you as a purveyor of spyware and clickbait.<p>OK, fine. So what then does tech propose these publications <i>do</i>, exactly? Are they supposed to just lay down and die? Because unless someone can come up with a third model  that actually works, that&#x27;s the only option left after you rule out every other option that works.<p>You can see this incoherence play out in every HN comment thread about journalism. The <i>New York Times</i> consistently produces excellent journalism; but they keep that journalism behind a paywall, so they are Evil. <i>Buzzfeed</i> doesn&#x27;t have a paywall, but it produces lots of clickbait and sponsored content[1], so they are Evil too.<p>The only publications that aren&#x27;t Evil, it turns out, are the ones that are going out of business.<p>[1] Although they also produce an increasing amount of very good journalism these days alongside it. Which, of course, the clickbait and sponsored content pay for.