Not generally a McArdle fan, but this is a good (opinion) piece.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/04/26/a-farewell-to-free-journalism/

«…the old open Internet was a marvelous gift to readers, a vast cornucopia of great writing upon which we’ve been gorging for the past two decades. But there’s a limit to how long one can keep handing out gifts without some reciprocity. At the end of the day, however much information wants to be free, writers still want to get paid.»