Proliferation of paywalled content will make it more difficult for Americans to read a diverse range of news sources

More and more news sites are putting up paywalls, which helps news writers make a living, but also makes it harder for the public to read a wide range of reputable news. 

"As paywalls grow more common (76 percent of American newspapers used them in 2019, up from 60% just two years prior) and stricter (publications are getting better at sussing out incognito mode and other tricks to dodge paywalls), most readers are still only willing to pay for one online news subscription," Mark Hill writes for Wired. "The media landscape, then, may come to resemble what it looked like before the internet, where it was difficult and expensive for any one consumer to traverse a wide range of viewpoints."

Hill continues: "Unless readers are willing to spend a lot of money—and substantially more than they spend on watching videos—it simply won’t be financially viable for them to consume a lot of internet content. Not coincidentally, a lot of internet content won’t be financially viable, either." That could push readers to free "news" sites with more dubious content.

University of Oregon journalism professor Damian Radcliffe told Hill that news sites must make it clear to readers why a subscription is worth their money. "That means letting people know the actual cost of producing journalism, and what’s at risk if you don’t financially support it," Hill writes. "Otherwise, big publications will only serve a minority of the population, small publications will struggle to survive, and people who have grown accustomed to free news will continue to seek it out, even if it ends up not really being news at all."